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Category Archives: Copyright
You often hear that copyright owners have a “bundle of rights.” This bundle refers to the five main protections that copyright offers: The right to reproduce your work The right to prepare derivative works based off your original work The right to distribute copies of your work The right to perform your work publicly The right to display your work in public Depending on what you create, you may be entitled to additional protections under federal copyright law. The Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (“VARA”) is one such law that expands on the traditional protections that copyright law offers. VARA grants so-called “moral rights” to copyright owners. These rights are as follows: The right to claim authorship The right to prevent your name from appearing on anything you did not create The right to prevent your name from appearing on your works that someone else has modified The right…
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As the Megaupload team is by now well aware, copyright infringement allegations are serious business. The popular site’s founder, Kim Dotcom, was arrested by New Zealand police in January upon American request for Dotcom and his site’s alleged involvement in the transmission of copyrighted works like movies and music. Megaupload has allegedly brought in more than $175 million in proceeds from making it easy for its users to share copyrighted works with others throughout the world. Dotcom is currently on house arrest, awaiting an August 20 hearing to determine whether New Zealand will extradite him to the US to face criminal charges. What American authorities accuse Megaupload of is copyright infringement. But, it is a more digital version of the legal charge. Copyright infringement was ordinarily reserved for direct copies or knock-offs of copyrighted works. Selling a copy of someone’s original photograph or selling knock-off purses is direct copyright infringement….
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The one exception to copyright protection is the defense of fair use. Fair use prevents copyrights from being too strong, since, without fair use, it would not be possible for critics to use writing excerpts or for the media or teachers to refer to works protected by copyright. Although there is still some debate as to whether fair use is a right (as in, you are entitled to fair use of a copyrighted work) or an affirmative defense, Supreme Court rulings and the general consensus confirm that fair use is the latter, an affirmative defense. This means that you do not claim fair use until you have to. The plaintiff must first bring a legitimate suit for copyright infringement against you, and then you claim fair use as an affirmative defense, meaning that you admit to using a copyrighted work, but that the use was lawful. Taking fair use as…
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