1. Copyright and Fair Use

2. Definition of Copyright
Copyright is a form of protection provided to authors of “original works of authorship” including literary, musical, artistic and certain intellectual works, such as inventions.

3. Copyright is in the U. S. Constitution
Copyright is in the U.S. Constitution. It “promotes the progress of science and the useful arts by securing for a limited time, protection to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their works or discoveries.”

4. Why is this important?
Scenario – you have developed the iPhone, and spent hundreds of millions of dollars. When you put it on the market, within days, Chinese and Korean companies are selling copies of your work for half of what you charge. Their phones are identical to yours. It is clear they have copied your invention.

5. Scenario two – You have spent $200 million on Batman, the Dark Knight Returns. The day after it is released, copies of the movie are being sold on streets in major cities and downloaded on the internet. It is clear people smuggled cameras into theaters and recorded the movie off screen, and are now selling it.

6. What happens to you as the inventor or artist in each case?
Is this fair?

7. What Copyright gives you
The right to distribute your work
To reproduce your work
To perform the work
To display the work publicly

8. Copyright is considered ownership of your work.
The copyright can be transferred to your family if you die.

9. What Copyright Does Not Cover
Ideas or Fact
The idea of voice overs, or voice doubles.

10. Public Domain
What happens if you do not register or renew your copyright when it runs out?
Your work goes into the public domain. This means people can use it.

11. Exercise –
Go to Amazon.com and look in books.
Look at copies of books made before 1900, like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. What does the e-book version cost?
Why?

12. Fair Use
There are exceptions to Copyright law, especially in the field of education.
Fair use is an excuse to go around the law. It states that if projects are done for educational and non-profit reasons, they are exempt from cease-and-desist letters.

13. Other Acceptable Forms of Fair Use
Parody – you can use an original in order to criticize it, so long as you transform it in some way. A parody is usually a comedy. Think of skits on Saturday Night Live that use caricatures of real people, or fake versions of a book or song. You have to transform the original to a great extent to be on the safe side of the law.