copyright

The Internet is a rich and easily accessible source of visual and audible material and data for information, education and entertainment. It is easier than ever to copy and paste, re-mix and re-work, download and publish images, films, music and texts. Also to create and share your own content as well as to use what others have created and published. It is necessary to know common regulations such as copyright or creative commons license in order to ensure the appropriate usage of the original work and material that the World Wide Web provides. These regulations also ensure that your own work is used in ways that you agree with

What is copyright?

Images by Elionas on Pixabay

In short: Copyright exists to protect creators' works, so they can make a living from their creations (eg stories, films, photography, paintings, dance choreographies, architecture, computer programs, apps).

These creations of the human mind consist of ideas, concepts, words, images - something vague you can't really touch, therefore they are intangible goods. These goods belong to their creator (s) - they are their intellectual property . Intellectual property legislation includes copyright, patent rights and trademark rights. For patent and trademark rights, the works have to be registered so that the rights become valid, whereas copyright is valid automatically from the point of creation - so no work needs a label indicating that "this work is intellectual property".

However, in line with technological progress and economic interests some symbols have been developed to denote various types of intellectual property (IP) protection:


Copyright symbol	Phonogram (Sound Recording Copyright Symbol)	Registerd Trademark Another Symbol, the ^TM, is used in connection with an unregistered mark.

This booklet is a good introduction for non-specialists: "Understanding Copy Rights and Related Rights" by the W orld I NTELLECTUAL P roperty O rganization ( WIPO ).

Global copyright?

Some international agreements promote uniform regulations for a transnational copyright. Nevertheless, there is no uniform international copyright law. Copyright is subject to National legislation . There are two legal traditions: the Continental European copyright and the Anglo-American copyright law, that differ in their details concerning the transferability or restriction of rights. Media users shall comply with copyright laws and regulations - online and in the real world. In our connected world, it's often not easy to say what usage of media is allowed or will lead to written warnings, fees or other legal consequences. To help young people through the jungle of copyright laws, you can use these guidelines:

in German (brochure under CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 license, author: Till Kreutzer, editors: klicksafe.de and irights.info)
in English
There are tips in the section “Exceptions to copyright”

Rights granted by copyright (European copyright)

Economic rights

The author of a copyright work has the right to authorize or prohibit the following acts:

reproduction (copying a work in any way)
distribution (issuing copies to the public)
rental and lending
public performance
communication to the public (by electronic transmission, eg TV, internet)
adaptation (eg making a film out of a novel, translations into different languages, converting a computer program into a different computer language or code)

Moral Rights

Moral rights protect the non-economic interests. Unlike economic rights, they cannot be sold or otherwise transferred.

right to attribution (right to be recognized as the author of a work)
right to object to derogatory treatment of a work

Exceptions to copyright

There are exceptions regarding eg

private study
education
non-commercial research
use of quotations

An interactive map of exceptions in Europe can be viewed at http://copyrightexceptions.eu/

To avoid complicated regulations there are initiatives that try to facilitate media use

Copyleft - is a form of licensing originating from software development. Programs and apps are published free of charge and can be edited by anyone, who also makes the new version available - free of charge and editable. This concept was transferred to other types of work and allows the free use of selected texts, images and music.

OA - O pen A ccess means that resources are freely available for viewing and reading, but not for modification.

OER - Open Educational Resources are teaching, learning and research materials that reside in a public domain or have been released under open license . OERs are any type of material for teachers and students to freely access, use, share, adapt and reuse, ie there are no or only limited copyright restrictions.

Another one of those open licensesIs the C reative C ommons copyright licenses this grants permission to use works within the boundaries of copyright law. Here's their informational flyer .

Education and teaching

As a teacher, you find information on the use of learning material here . Please note that it refers to UK law and that you have to check the rules for education in your respective country.

For your students, you can use these short copyright guidelines when using published content in lessons:

Teaching resources

Video by CopyrightUser.org (video on vimeo.com ), Production: Bartolomeo Meletti, Creative Direction: Marco Bagni ( CC-BY 3.0 License ) To enable subtitles in your language use the setting button!

-------------------------------------------------- -----

Sources: https://www.bpb.de/gesellschaft/medien-und-sport/urheberrecht/ ; https://www.urheberrecht.de/copyright/ ; https://www.eucopyright.com/ ; https://www.copyrightuser.org/ ; https://www.cla.co.uk/ (last access: September 2019)

¹ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode