Week 1: Clear: Copyrighting! You Better Follow The Rules Or You're Screwed

The Copyright Act of 1976 is the primary foundation of the Copyright Laws in the United States. These laws were created so the creators of copyrighted materials could profit from the capital benefits of their idea. The idea in general cannot be copyrighted but the material form of the idea can be. Materials that can be copyrighted include:

books, Music, Movies,

Pictures, Plays, and Dance

Due to The Copyright Act of 1976, copyrighted material is privately owned by the creator for his or her life plus 70 years. In order for copyrighted material to be "fair use" one of these three circumstances must be true. The user is the owner of the copyrighted material, the owner has given the user a written statement granting permission to use the material, or the material is in the public domain. If material is in the public domain then it is legally accessible by anyone at anytime.

If someone uses copyrighted material they are required to use the copyright symbol (to the left) to credit the owner. In addition, one can only copyright a small amount of material and each type of material has its own special rule.

For instance, if someone wants to copyright a song they could either use ten percent of the song or thirty seconds, whichever is less.

In The Business World

Out of chapter 1, Copyrighting is the most important topic because not doing this correctly could get you in serious trouble. This is used a lot in the business environment. Business's use copyrighted material in there advertisements, in their presentations, and sometimes even in their slogans. Trust me, If you were in control of any one of these parts of a corporation I would definitely make sure I have a legal use of the material.

Fair Use of Copyrighted Materials

The article "fair use" explains and how it is seen in the courtroom. There is no set definition of "fair use", it's just up to the judge to determine. The site also gives step-by-step instructions to see if a material is copyrighted and how to fairly use it.