SolveYourProblem Article Series: Copyrights
I Need To Understand Copyright Law
Accidentally
Infringing on a Copyright?
Copyright
infringement is in the news a lot lately – it’s hard to miss
stories about kids being carted off to jail or
seriously fined for downloading music or movies off the internet.
I’ve even heard about a lady was fined for tens of thousands
of dollars for copyright infringement
– her grandson downloading music, and she couldn’t prove it
wasn’t her.
Copyright
infringement is complicated – and not easy to define.
Surfing the internet has its advantages and disadvantages,
that’s for sure. We’re able to find useful information quickly,
but how close are we pertaining to copyright laws? Do we even
know what is and is not acceptable? A couple of the more pertinent
questions have been asked below:
If you hear a great new band, and then download a song from
MySpace, is that legal or not?
Copyright
infringement is not only limited by Kazaa, Morpheus, or some
other file sharing peer to peer
(P2P) service. If you download a song - no matter if you’re
on a website or a MySpace page - and it isn’t coming from the
artist themselves, you may want to think about downloading
it. Chances are, if it’s not coming from them, you can’t have
it – unless it is under a Creative Commons License. Creative
Commons gives the exact ways in which you can use the license
– and many times those are completely free and legal to download
– so make sure you check if it’s under a CC License.
If I’m writing a paper, or article, and I want to quote another
website, can I?
First of all, did
you know the minute you write or create something, you
hold the copyright to it? ESPECIALLY if you’re
writing it online – it’s very easy to track things in the internet
page. So, if you’re writing a blog, all the things you’ve written
(no matter good or bad) are there permanently, thanks to archive.org,
and you can review last versions of your web pages.
Sometimes,
people we can use – rather heavily – someone else’s work
in our own, and think we’re small and anonymous. That
no one will notice by the time you get it down – you’re just
‘borrowing’ it. Before you begin quoting anyone’s website –
from CNN to your local neighborhood hardware store – you need
to ask the person who holds the copyright if you can. Usually,
they’ll let you if you attribute to them. Depending who you
talk to, you’ll either have to pay royalties or license rights
to republish. If you don’t ask before you quote, that's copyright
infringement and you are opening yourself up for a lawsuit.
As
you can see, copyright infringement can occur at any time,
beginning with normal ‘everyday’ activities. It’s
just as easy to infringe on as it is to be infringed upon.
Make sure you check your copyright using CopyScape or some
other service, and you can check your work against other works
on the internet, and make sure that you’re not infringing someone
or vice versa. In this day it’s easy to protect yourself from
getting infringed upon, and the events of copyright infringement
are easy to track. It’s easy for innocent people to get caught
in copyright infringement, like children they didn’t know what
they could and couldn’t do. Make sure, in all you do, that
you’re striving to do the best you can, and you’ll be certain
not to fall victim to your own infringing demons.
# # # # # SolveYourProblem.com
: 2008
> Home > Copyright Law: Main Page
|
