9.2 Copyright Basics
Eventually Congress produced four components of Intellectual Property: Copyright, Trademark, Patents, and Trade Secrets. From the time the first law was accepted until present day, copyright law has been constantly amended and changed. More recent revisions include the 1976 Copyright Act which is the last major revision of copyright law. This act made the fourth generation of copyright law. In 1980, computer programs became protected works and in 1984, Congress enacted the Semiconductor Chip Protection Act. The United States became a member of the Berne Convention in 1989 which brought protection for all copyrights in the countries that were also members of the convention. The Computer Software Rental Amendment Act of 1990 gave software owners the right to control the rental and lending of their software. And finally there was the NII Copyright Protection Act of 1995 which will be discussed in detail later in the chapter.
Copyright law has undergone many changes and additions. This section will certainly need to be expanded in the future. Exactly what will happen is unclear but only technology will tell.
Copyrights will be the main focus for this chapter because the WWW has had the biggest impact on this component of intellectual property as compared to the other three. A copyright begins on any work the minute that work is placed on a fixed medium. A fixed medium ranges from paper to audio or video tapes to CD-ROM. As soon as the work is recorded, the author owns a copyright and has the ability to reserve the rights of that ownership. There are, however, three basic requirements that a new work must meet in order to have a copyright. First, the work must be original. An author must produce something original, not copied or derived from some other work. Secondly, the work must also be creative. There is no strict definition for the word creativity, however, the work must be in some sense creative. And finally, the work must be on a fixed medium such as the ones described.
It is not required, but almost necessary for an owner of a copyright to give notice of the copyright on the work. There are three parts of a notice of copyright; 1) the symbol, word or abbreviation of copyright, 2) the first year the work was distributed and 3) the name of the copyright owner. For Example: Copyright © 1996 Kelly R. Hanood. In order to signify clearly to the public that your work is protected, the piece should contain notification. Otherwise, it may be forgotten that a copyright exists.
Despite the exclusive rights of a copyright the public has the ability to reproduce a work for certain reasons. "Fair Use" allows a person to make a copy of a work for the purpose of criticism, news reporting, research and others. If the copy is for personal, non-commercial use the person who made the copy is not violating the copyright. In the circumstance of teaching or education, multiple (more than one) copies are allowed. There are certain items that are not protected by a copyright. The copyright on a work does not cover the title, ideas or concepts. A copyright also does not cover names, slogans, coloring, lettering, and speeches or performances not recorded in some way.
There are many sites on the Web that explain copyright law in more detail. This chapter is not meant to teach copyright law but to give an overview so that the reader will have a base of copyright knowledge to take with them as they read the following sections of this chapter.
Copyright © 1996 Kelly R. Hanood
Kelly Hanood <hanood@simon.cs.vt.edu>