Copyright
The Copyright Act originally started in the UK and the most up-to-date copyright act was passed in 1988.
With the Copyright Law it gives the creators of work the rights to control what is happening with their files. They are able to control the publishing, copying, adapting, issuing, renting and lending their work between other members of the public.
The copyright Act is most commonly used in creative and media files. This includes written work, drama pieces, music, artwork, sound recordings and films.
The length of the copyright licence depends on many factors including what type of work it is, whether it was published, and whether it was created by an individual or a group of people. The copyright act usually is effective for the whole of the creator’s life and then 50 – 70 more years after their death.
- Literary, Drama, Music and Artwork: copyright is effective for 70 years after the last creator dies.
- Sound recordings and broadcasts: copyright is effective for 50 years after it was created or released.
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Films: copyright is effective for 70 years after the last principal director, author or composer dies. If the creator is unknown then it is 70 years from the creation or from when it was first made available.
Copyleft
Copyleft is where the creator of a certain file has given up some of their rights, which gives the public the right to use copy and adapt it as much as they wish. The piece of work is free and all moderations of it are free as well.
There are 4 main types of license codes for Copyleft:
- Freedom 0- the freedom to use the work
- Freedom 1- the freedom to study the work
- Freedom 2- the freedom to copy and share the work with others
- Freedom 3- the freedom to modify the work and distribute the modified copies
Copyleft covers materials such as computer software, other software and art.
Creative commons
Creative Commons was founded in 2001 and is a non-profit organisation. The Creative Commons organisation provides a number of copyright licence choices to the public, which are free of change. These licences allow copyright holders to define conditions under which others may work and to specify what types of use are acceptable.
There are 4 major parts of Creative Commons.
- Attribution (BY): requires attribution to the original author
- Share Alike (SA): allows derivative works under the same or a similar licence
- Non-Commercial (NC): requires the work is not used for commercial purposes
- No Derivative Works (ND): allows only the original work, without derivatives.
Creative commons are very different to copyright. The copyright law gives the creator of the work the rights to copy, edit and display the work or give authorization for others to do so. The creative commons license is the authorization. The creator of the work will say what can be done with it by the public, as long as they give credit to them. The public don’t usually have to pay to use the work.
A2 ICT 