Copyright Termination

Don’t be Fooled by the Lack of a Copyright Notice

We are all familiar with copyright notices. They appear on web sites, compact discs, books, virtually everything that is protected by copyright laws.

They usually contain the letter “c” inside of a circle with wording such as “All Rights Reserved” following. Even though most everyone is familiar with these notices, there is a great deal of confusion about the purpose of a copyright notice and what the failure to include such a notice may mean to the author of a work. Much of this confusion arises from a relatively recent change in United States Copyright Law.

Under past United States Copyright Law, it was necessary to place the copyright notice on every item containing a protected work. Failure to include a copyright notice on a substantial number of published items could lead to loss of copyright protection. In effect, the work would lapse into the public domain because the failure to include a copyright notice was deemed to be a waiver of copyright protection. About 15 years ago, the United States amended the copyright laws to come into conformance with the Berne Convention on International Copyrights and the laws of many foreign countries. The end result is that failure to include a copyright notice on a published work does not any longer lead to loss of copyright protection.

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Even with this change of law, there are still very good reasons to include a copyright notice when you publish a work of original authorship. including the notice asserts to the world that the work is yours and that you intend to enforce your rights. It also helps guard against a defense of innocent infringement or an arguement that the infringement was not intentional. Under the copyright laws, intentional infringement results in much higher statutory penalties.

The end result of this change in law is that it is no longer safe to assume that a work that does not include a copyright notice is not protected under the copyright laws. The copyright laws protect all original works of authorship regardless of whether they contain copyright notices or have been registered with the copyright office. There can be differences in the level of damages available if a notice is not included or a registration has not been affected. Still, misappropriation of a work of original work of authorship is still considered copyright infringements and damages would be recoverable against hte misappropriating party.

Given this fact, it is wise to assume that everything you run across on the Internet is copyright protected. You should refrain from publishing or using these items unless you obtain a license from the author. If you cannot find out who the author is so not assume that they are not out there and will not come after you if you use their material. The inconvenience and potential legal liability are too substantial and could have huge adverse impacts on your business.

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Creativity as a Result of Copyright

Copyright is a set of exclusive laws that regulate the utilization of the work of creators like artists and authors. Copyright prohibits such things like copying, changing, displaying and distributing creative, literary, and music among other types of work. In this case, the creator of a work retains the copyright unless stated otherwise. Importantly, for a copyright to be applied ideas put to work must be original where the physical use of the idea is protected by the copyright. Examples of physical ideas are written novels or music that is covered under the copyright law. This paper will be guided by a thesis statement stated as; the main aim of copyright is to ensure that society is rich with creative works. On this basis, the copyright laws ensure that society becomes innovative where different people come up with different ideas which bring development in society (Coombe, 1998).

In this case, this paper will look at the importance of copyright laws that prevent copying of other people’s ideas without their authorization. Additionally, the advantages as well as the disadvantages of copyright will be addressed. A conclusion will be drawn in relation to the arguments described in this essay (Demers, 2005).

Certainly, innovation is a very important thing in society as it allows development in that society. In this case, innovativeness is brought about by creativity where people come up with different ideas in society. On this basis, copyright as it prevents people from using others’ ideas it will help society members to be creative and hence creation of new works. Importantly, the reason as to why there are very few innovators in society is because people are used to using other people’s ideas and hence they could not come up with their own. When society is rich in creative work there will be no cases of idleness in all aspects of society (Eisenscitz, 1989).

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According to Vaidhyanathan (2003), internet is one of the most frequently used sources of information. In this relation, most people has been using internet to get other people’s ideas through copying and hence in the field of intellectualism there has not been many developments as no new ideas are developed. On this basis, whatever is posted in the internet is supposed to help the reader think critically and come up with new ideas rather than using what is already created by somebody else (Vaidhyanathan, 2003).

Basically, in terms of academics copying is a form of cheating and the person who is copying will not be able to learn the whole concept properly. In this case, one will only be relying on other people’s work and hence will not be creative. The main aim of students going to school is to acquire education so that they can be self reliant in future. On this basis, copyright will help students in being creative and doing very well in their studies as they are prevented from copying other people’s work. Copyright therefore will bring about intellectualism which will be very helpful in society. In view of this, societies which produce everything from others will remain backward as there is no competition as a result no people are developing new ideas (Fishman, 2003).

Importantly, history has it that the major proponents of education or any other field be it in physical or social science were very creative because they did not copy from others but used other people’s ideas to come up with their own. On this basis therefore, copyright is a very useful tool in bringing about creativity in a society. It has been revealed that, each and every person who brought about science and education used his/her mind to think and hence came up with viable developments in the society. On this basis, if these people copied from each other there could be no developments as there could be no creativity. When people think and come up with their own ideas, they challenge others to develop something different from what has already been developed. Importantly, people as a result of copyright laws through the ideas of others develop their own and hence there will be a lot of developments in society (Hoorn, 2006).

In the United States of America, copyright is function oriented as it is imposed in order to promote creativity in society. On this basis, the limitations imposed in the copyright laws clearly indicate that a person should use his/her own ideas but not copying from somebody else without authorization. In this sense, the society members are encouraged to be more creative and innovative in order to develop the society. As far as this function oriented goal of copyright is concerned, the main goal is what is achieved from the limitations in terms of increasing creativity levels in society rather than the legal matters (Lessiq, 2008).

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