Copyright

What is Copyright? Why do we have copyrighting?

Copyright is the law that protects someone’s work from being used without the author’s permission. We have it so the original person who created the idea or object gets credit for it and the money they deserve instead of someone ripping off their idea and selling it.

Compare the two songs in this copyright case. Do you think the following songs are targeted at different audiences?

The newer version is targeted to the younger audience.

Rap or Rock? Can you tell the difference? Go to the following website to play clips of Vanilla Ice and Queen / David
Vanilla Ice’s song is rap and Queen/David Bowie’s song is rock.

What does copyright law protect?
Copyright protects the original authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture.

Why are there copyright laws?
There are copyright laws because it protects some one's original idea from being copied and used unfairly.

What is fair use?
Fair use is using a limited amount of the work for educational purpose. Also, if it's non-profit, then it is okay.

Does fair use completely cover whatever she wants to do or are there limits to what is fair?
There are limits to the amount of use of some one's work that you can use.

Why can’t copyrighted materials be put on a school website?
People other than the students have access to that information.

How much stuff on the web is copyrighted? (Not much, a quarter, about half, etc?)
Almost everything is copyrighted on the web.

What is Creative Commons? What does it mean?
Creative Commons defines the spectrum of possibilities between full copyright — all rights reserved — and the public domain — no rights reserved. Our licenses help you keep your copyright while inviting certain uses of your work — a "some rights reserved" copyright.