Copyright

Copyright protects works where how ideas are expressed is critical to the work. Examples include literary works, artworks, photographs, films, plays, musical compositions, and dance choreographies.

Copyright literally means “the right to copy”. The owner of a copyright on a piece of work has exclusive rights “to produce or reproduce the work in any substantial part thereof in any material form whatever.”

Copyright

The right to copy. It protects works where how ideas are expressed is critical to the work.

For example: when it comes to a literary work, copyright law affects the right to make photocopies of the work, to publish the work, and to write a new literary work that imitates or refers to the original work.

Another example; when it comes to musical compositions, copyright law affects the right to make photocopies of the score sheets, make recordings of the music, perform the music in live concerts, and create new songs that imitate or create samples from the original music.

It isn’t just the reproduction of the entire work that IP law protects against. The law also protects against the reproduction of parts of an original work.

Copyright vs Plagiarism

Copyright infringement is different from plagiarism. To plagiarize is to present someone else’s work as your own, without giving proper credit to the original author. Such copying is deemed plagiarism even if the copying is not word‐for‐word or covers a small portion of the original work. On the other hand, distributing unauthorized copies of someone else’s copyrighted work infringes on the copyright, even if the original work is property cited.

Copyright has to do with having permission to make copies, and plagiarism has to do with proper citation.

How Copyrights Work in Canada

• It is generally the case that the creator holds the initial copyright of their creations. However, IP rights are themselves a type of property that can be bought, sold, gifted, or inherited. In other words, as a creator, you can sell the IP rights of your works to another party or you can bequeath them when you die.
• These days, copyright protection starts automatically upon creation of the work and persists until 50 years after the creator’s death.
• Publishing is not necessary for the work to be under copyright. Having its expression fixed in its final form or nearly final form is enough. That said, registration is useful if you ever need to prove your IP ownership in court.
• Copyright protection extends automatically to the 167 countries that have signed the Berne Convention. This mans that you do not have to register your copyright in those countries in order for you work to be protected in those countries.

”You own the copyright for work that you create as part of your job, working for an employer” False.

• According to the Canadian Copyright Act, you are the author of work that you create as part of your job, but the default copyright holder is your employer.

”You own the copyright for work that you create outside of your job (e.g. if you create a smartphone app).” True

Misc

Consider whether this statement is true or false:

Given that The Beatles don’t own the copyrights to their songs, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr have to pay royalties every time they perform one of their own songs at a live concert.

This is true! Because The Beatles do not own the copyrights to their own songs, the surviving members of The Beatles - Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr - have to pay royalties to the copyright holder every time they play a Beatles’ song in concert