What is the purpose of Copyright?

What does copyright actually mean? Asking people its definition gave several different answers. I was told that copyright was to protect an artist, to protect a writer and to make sure that nobody steals her or his work to make money off of it for their own benefit.

To protect from what? What kind of protection does copyright actually have for the person who buys it? First lets look at what copyright protection actually is.

Copyright, not to be confused with Copywriting, was invented after the advent of the printing press and with wider public literacy. As a legal concept, its origins in Britain were from a reaction to printers' monopolies at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Charles II of England was concerned by the unregulated copying of books and used the royal prerogative to pass the Licensing Act of 1662, which established a register of licensed books and required a copy to be deposited with the Stationers Company, essentially continuing the licensing of material that had long been in effect. The Statute of Anne was the first real copyright act, and gave the publishers rights for a fixed period, after which the copyright expired. Copyright has grown from a legal concept regulating copying rights in the publishing of books and maps to one with a significant effect on nearly every modern industry, covering such items as sound recordings, films, photographs, software, and architectural works.

Copyright is a legal concept enacted by most national governments that gives the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited period of time. At its most general, it is literally "the right to copy", but also gives the copyright holder the right to be credited for the work, to determine who (if anyone) can perform it or adapt it to other forms, to benefit financially from the work, and other related rights. It is one form of intellectual propertypatents, trademarks, and trade secrets), and applies to any particular expression of an idea or information, which is substantial and self-contained in a fixed form. (distinct from

The symbol for copyright is "©". The letter C inside parentheses, "(c)", although a common practice, has never been legally recognized as a symbol for copyright.

Copyright usually protects the expression of an idea, not the idea itself — in US jurisprudence this is called the idea/expression or fact/expression dichotomy. For example, if a writer has a general concept or idea for a television program, the law of copyright does not prohibit other writers from copying that general idea. However, if the writer develops the idea so that it constitutes a detailed storyline or plot, then that may be protected by copyright, notwithstanding that it is "idea" rather than "expression". Similarly, the translation of a literary work will constitute an infringement of copyright, not withstanding that no element of the "expression" is directly copied.

Is the Bible infringing on Copyright laws?

Another example could be if a book is written describing a new way to organize books in a library, a copyright does not prohibit a reader from freely using and describing that concept to others; it is only the particular expression of that process as originally described that is covered by copyright. One might be able to obtain a patent for the method, but that is a different area of law. Compilations of facts or data may also be copyrighted, but such a copyright is thin; it only applies to the particular selection and arrangement of the included items, not to the particular items themselves. In some jurisdictions the contents of databases are expressly covered by statute.

"Poor man's copyright"

A widely circulated strategy to avoid the cost of copyright registration is referred to as the "poor man's copyright". It proposes that the creator send the work to himself in a sealed envelope by registered mail, using the postmark to establish the date. This technique has not been recognized by any United States court, and is dismissed as meaningless by the United States Copyright Office. However, the UK Patent Office suggests it as one method of proving the originality of a work as of the postmark date.

In 1989, the U.S. enacted the Berne Convention Implementation Act, amending the 1976 Copyright Act to conform to most of the provisions of the Berne Convention. As a result, the use of copyright notices has become optional to claim copyright, because the Berne Convention makes copyright automatic. However, notice of copyright (using these marks) may have consequences in terms of reduced damages in an infringement lawsuit.

References

1. http://www.copyrighthistory.com/anne.html
2. Express Newspaper Plc v News (UK) Plc, F.S.R. 36 (1991)
3. Copyright Act of 1976, Pub.L. 94-553, 90 Stat. 2541, § 401(a) (October 19, 1976)
4. The Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988 (BCIA), Pub.L. 100-568, 102 Stat. 2853, 2857. One of the changes introduced by the BCIA was to section 401, which governs copyright notices on published copies, specifying that notices "may be placed on" such copies; prior to the BCIA, the statute read that notices "shall be placed on all" such copies. An analogous change was made in section 402, dealing with copyright notices on phonorecords.
5. http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ03.html
6. 17 U.S.C. § 401(d)
7. http://www.snopes.com/legal/postmark.asp
8. Copyright Law of the USA, Chapter 1 Section 121: http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#121
9. Copyright (Visually Impaired Persons) Act 2002 (England): http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/documents/publicwebsite/public_cvipsact2002.hcsp