Chapter One What Is Copyright 4 C h a p t e r o n e W h a t I s C o p y r i g h t You’ve worked hard on a great slideshow presentation It has plenty of pictures When you post it to your class Web site your teacher says This is good work but you really shouldn’t use other people’s copyrighted materi als in your slides What does that mean Your teacher is reminding you that oops you used other people’s words videos audio recordings or images in your project Then you published their work with yours without asking their permission make sure you give credit to the creators if you use other people’s words or images in a project this book does take a look at page 2 after the title page
5 You probably found the information in books films Web sites or other sources Though you may not have copied their works directly you still need to give them credit What is copyright You may have seen words like copyright 2013 or 2013 in books on CD sleeves or in movie credits Copyright means that the person or organization that created the work gets to decide how it is used From the moment an article picture note poster podcast or video is created that work is automatically protected by U S and interna tional copyright law That gives the creators control over how their works are used by others The same is the copyright symbol lets you know that the words music images or other creations are protected
6 C h a p t e r o n e W h a t I s C o p y r i g h t true for you from the moment you create something copyright law protects your work Even if you find something online it’s still copyrighted unless it says otherwise It never hurts to add copyright 2013 to your work But even without those words someone’s work is protected in the same way those movies or CDs are Some people mail their work off to the Library of Congress but this isn’t necessary Copyright is actually a set of five rights These rights let the creator of a work decide how others can use that work Creators control who can 1 make copies of their work such as prints photocopies or electronic copies 2 make any derivatives which are new versions or adaptations of a work whether using part of the work or all of it 3 distribute copies of the work such as in a bookstore or on a Web site 4 display the work in public for example at an art gallery or on a Web site and
7 5 publicly perform the work if the work is a play piece of music ballet or anything else that can be performed by others A creative work is original writing art photo graphs audio images music scores song lyrics or even the dance steps for a ballet company All of those can be copyrighted It doesn’t matter whether a famous author like Rick Riordan creates it or whether you do It’s one of your rights as a world citizen Anything you create is automatically protected by copyright
