Copyright for Publishers and Websites

Publishing any media, whether digital or print requires that you understand copyright.

Copyright Law

In this section you will find answers to:

• The Digital Millennium Copyright Act - helps protect online content
• What is copyright
• What is protected by copyright law
• What is Not protected by copyright law
• How long does copyright last
• How to get copyright protection
• Fair Use
• How to protect works on the web
• Further Copyright Resources

Related Website Legal Items

• Copyright liability for visitor posts
• How to protect yourself from content posted by visitors to your blog
• Website Legal Checklist 2009
• Good content gone bad

Copyright law?

Copyright statutes aim to encourage development of intellectual property and artistic products for the public good. Creators are given exclusive rights, for limited times, to copy and distribute their works. They may also control the use of and seek payment for their original creations and for their derivative works. This applies to art, publishing, and software.

What is protected by copyright law?

Your artwork is your intellectual property, and it is protected by copyright law.

Your art (graphics, photos, music, etc.) becomes protected by copyright when you take it from an idea or concept and make it into something fixed and tangible. The basic requirements that a work of art must meet to qualify for copyright protection are:

• It must be original. The artwork must be original, not copied from anything else.
• It must be creative. The artwork must show at least a minimum amount of creativity.
• It must be fixed in a tangible medium, regardless of whether that is digital, painted, drawn, music, scanned, printed, photographic or any combination accessible by any device

If you can see or touch your artwork, with or without the aid of a machine or device, no matter what its medium, it qualifies as being fixed in a tangible medium of expression. And you own it and the copyrights to it. Unless it's been pre-empted by the Frumious Bandersnatch; see the section further on for due warning!

So you cannot just scrape content off websites and print them into your book. All published works are copyright automatically.

Next: The Digital Millennium Copyright Act

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