| Copyright Basics |
| "Hello, Your Life Has Been Copyrighted" Image provided by Damouns |
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| In society today we are surrounded by creative works. Through television, movies, books, music, paintings, and other mediums, we share our culture and learn together. But there is something significantly different about many of today's artistic creations. More so than ever before, these creative works are made not by professional artists, but by average, ordinary people. Only in the last few years have you and I been able to use our talents to create something that millions of people can instantly enjoy. The internet, along with companies such as YouTube, Blogspot, Facebook, and others, fuel a digital revolution which enables the average creative person, armed only with his or her natural talents, to create an enriching masterpiece for all to enjoy. |
| A Guide for the Average Creative Person |
| Unfortunately, copyright law - which affects and controls how creative works are made and disseminated - is still lumbering around in a prior era. Adding to the disorder is the fact that copyright law, as currently written, is a jumbled incoherent mess. So the chances of the ordinary person actually understanding what the law says and conforming to its principles is very small. |
| This leaves the average person in a sticky situation. Since most of us would prefer to avoid lawsuits, we play it conservatively and refrain from creating new works or using existing works - even if our actions would be perfectly legal under the current law. Many companies take advantage of our confusion and pretend they have more rights than they really do (more on that in chapter 4), which means we lose even more. In effect, the overall confusion and lack of information about copyright law means that we, as a society, are missing out on a lot of enrichment and utility which copyright law says we are supposed to have. As technology and the internet march on, we will lose more and more as our notions of what copyright law permits get farther and farther from what copyright law actually permits. And that is the real tradegy. |
| The purpose of this website is to help close that gap and enable you and I to participate in, use, and collectively create artistic works for the benefit of society. As explained later on, this is, in fact, the purpose of copyright law. While many important topics will not be covered, I hope to explain enough copyright law so ordinary people (i.e. you and I) will know what the law permits and what it does not. In other words, I hope to enable the average person to create and use important works with a better idea of his or her legal standing. |
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. |
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| In the spirit of collaboration, I welcome any comments, suggestions, or criticisms - I can be reached at richardmarsh17 [at] yahoo.com |