Creative Commons

Copyright is a type of intellectual property for  the exclusive and assignable legal right (given to the originator/creator for a fixed number of years) to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material. Copyright is necessary mainly for the protection of a creator's moral and economic rights. Moral rights refer to the protection of the integrity of the creator/owner's work. This means consumers of the work may not change it and compromise the structural integrity of the work. Economic rights refers to the protection of the creator's ability to benefit financially from their work.

Apart from the variances in copyright in different countries, there re some fundamentals about copyright that will help you understand its purpose:

• Copyright grants a set of exclusive rights to creators, meaning no one else may copy, distribute, publicly perform, adapt or otherwise use the work without their permission.
• Copyright grants rights to literary and artistic works that are original and expressed in a tangible form such as written or recorded. What this means is that there is a certain standard of originality to warrant copyright. This is also slightly different across countries, but generally it means the work must be a creation of its creator and not copied from another work.
• Copyright does not protect facts or ideas. It does protect the expression of those facts or ideas. The expression of the idea usually refers to the tangible form it is represented in, e.g. a book, film, recorded or written song, etc.
• Copyright is automatic the moment the work is created (or fixed in a tangible form). 
• Copyright lasts a long time. The Berne Convention recommends the lifetime of the creator plus 50 years after their death. Again, this varies between countries.
• Copyright protection is balanced against other public interests. These interests include freedom of expression rights, accessibility, and the needs of people with disabilities. In these cases copyright protection might be limited to serve the public interest, for example creating a braille copy of a work.

Copyright protects a long list of works, e.g.:

• literary works such as novels, poems, plays, reference works, and newspaper articles
• computer programmes and databases
• films, musical compositions and choreography
• artistic wrks such as paintings, drawings, photographs and sculpture
• architecture
• advertisements, maps and technical drawings

In most countries copyright is valid for 50 years after the creator/owner's death. Once it expires, the work goes into the Public Domain.

Copyright laws tend to be restrictive and make it difficult for content users to use the content. Having to ask permission to use a work can bring frustrations. That is why policies such as fair use and fair dealing exist. Fair use means that no permission is needed to use a work, on the condition that it will be used for criticism, teaching, news reporting scholarship and research purposes

For more information on fair use of copyrighted material, and DALRO clearances, contact Xolelwa Xorile