Now read the text and find out about what you can or cannot copy legally.

Agnieszka Sękiewicz‑Magoń What You Need to Know About Copyright

CopyrightcopyrightCopyright is a form of intellectual propertyintellectual propertyintellectual property which grants the owner legal rights to his or her creative work. Simply put, it’s the right to copycopy (verb)copy. Copyrights make the owner the only person who has exclusive rights to reproduce and distribute copiesdistribute copiesdistribute copies of their work, make derivative worksderivative works [derivative work]derivative works, and present them publicly. That means that if anyone wants to reproduce the original work, make a copymake a copymake a copy of it, or perform it, they have to ask its creators for authorisationauthorisationauthorisation.

There are a lot of areas which are protected by copyright. The most common examples include artistic work, such as novels, art, poetry, musical lyrics, compositions, photographs (when at least minimal degree of creativity is involved) or film; but also things connected to computing, like computer software applications or various types of software codes. Copyrights also apply to some business elements, for example, databases, business plans, proposals, annual reports, architectural plans, or even letters and emails written by a business. Not all creative works can be copyrightedcopyrightedcopyrighted. The list here includes discoveries, themes, ideas or theories, individual words, things created not by man but by nature, unoriginal works, and works with expired copyrightsexpired copyrights [expired copyright]expired copyrights. There are also differences in the interpretation of what can be protected under the copyright lawcopyright lawcopyright law in individual countries. For example, in the U.S.A. such works need to be in a tangible formtangible formtangible form, which means that a speech or a sermonsermonsermon will not be protected unless they are written down on paper, whereas in the EU or in Poland it is not a requirement.

Since Poland is a member of the Berne Convention, copyright is automatic and doesn’t require any official registration in a government office. The author’s work is protected by copyright law the moment it is seen, heard, or read in public, and the protection lasts throughout the whole life of the author, and 70 years after his or her death, or if the author is not known, for 70 years after its first disseminationdisseminationdissemination. After this time, the work returns to the public domainpublic domainpublic domain and may be used in any way.

Unfortunately, copyright infringementcopyright infringementcopyright infringement happens every day. You have probably infringed oninfringed on [infringe on]infringed on somebody’s copyright at some moment in your life too, perhaps not even realising it. The most common types of infringement are text and image copyright violationscopyright violations [copyright violation]copyright violations. They occur in photography, literature, and art, but also in film and music, which have been plagued by piracyplagued by piracyplagued by piracy and illegal distributionillegal distributionillegal distribution of copies. Nevertheless, there are ways of avoiding the unauthorised useunauthorised useunauthorised use of somebody else’s work. The first one is fair use,fair usefair use, allowing you to legally copy parts of a book, film, or other copyrighted material if it is for comment, reporting, research, works of criticism, or for educational purposes. Additionally, remember that works from the public domain can be used for any personal usepersonal usepersonal use or purpose. You can also use works with Creative CommonsCreative Commons licences [Creative Commons licence]Creative Commons licences, which stipulatestipulatestipulate what rights you have concerning a given work. Finally, if you want to use someone else’s intellectual property, you can seek direct licensingdirect licensingdirect licensing from its creator. Hopefully, you will think twice next time you are tempted to copy‑paste a text from an internet source or use a random photo for your school assignment.

1 Źródło: Agnieszka Sękiewicz‑Magoń , licencja: CC BY-SA 3.0.