Copyright Protection Subtopic: Introduction to Copyright protection By Alfred M. Ndirangu
The form of protection offered to the creator or the author of an original piece of work which includes musical, artistic, literary and other intellectual works, either published or unpublished is termed as copyright. Copyright guards against; reproduction of the original work, preparation of derivative works, distribution of copies of the original piece of work for rental, sale or lease, display of the work in the public or record sound recording through digital transmission. It gives the author exclusive rights for a specific duration of time, examples of copyrighted works include; description of a machine, names, logos or pictures, sound recordings, computer databases, dramatic works, architectural works, TV shows, commercials, movies and live concert videos (Stephen, 2007). Depending on the laws of different jurisdictions, the length of copyright protection varies. Also the length relies on factor such as the type of work, whether the work is published or unpublished, whether the owner is an individual or a corporate. In most countries, if the work is unpublished the copyright protection starts from the time the idea is given a physical form up to the time the author dies plus 70 or 50 years, while for published editions, the copyright works in force for 25 years. Some aspects of copyright or the whole copyright may be transferred or assigned to another party depending on whether there exists an agreement between the two parties e.g. musicians often record songs and signs an agreement with his or her the recording to exchange all
copyright with royalties plus some other considerations . The © symbol is a copyright logo whose presence on any work originally meant that the work is copyrighted but today the symbol does not have to be present since copyright protection is automatically attained (Arnoud, 2006).
References Arnoud, E. (2006). The copyright symbol. Retrieved from http://www.iusmentis.com/copyright/symbol/ Stephen, F. (2007). Legal guide to Web & software development. Retrieved from http://www.x4l.org/resources/surfx4l/The Basics of Copyright_HTML/page_02.htm