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confused soul... who wants to try out everything, just to see what it is... and then just moves away from it... give me money, and i ll spend it in no time... without money, i ll survive without whine...

Monday, November 27, 2006

This Blog has no Copyright

I ve gone thru a few blogs.. which say that the material in this blog can not and shud not be used anywhere, the ideas are of the owner and something somethig..
i am not sure of the legality of this.. but i think it is more to discourage anybody who tries to use the ideas or language of the blogger... i guess the blogger thinks that someday he might articles or even books, where he might use these ideas and therefore shud not be used by someone else..

for once i was tempted to do the same in my blogs.. but then i thought, what if i am never allowed to say 'to be or not to be' or 'if i tell u this, i will have to kill you' or 'miles to go before i sleep' so on and so forth..
how would i be..
what if Bible was copyrighted, where would the world be???

i ve read all these and have been using their language, their ideas all my life.. and frankly, i have been reading pirated books to enhance my knowledge. i have developed my ideas from reading all this only.

so now today, if i keep all this to myself, would i be fair and honest??
i m sure after this background the answer can be only 'NO'...

Copyrighting is not for me, i believe in free exchange of knowledge and information..
let the robert ludlums and fredrick foresyths use their skill with words and give people what they want and of course mint money by copyrighting..

i am a simple guy.. i have read most of the stuff for free and will keep my blogs free for all.
i ve other job which takes can take care of my limited needs.
in all probability i will not become an author or write successful articles, but whatever i write, is and will be free for people to read..

i believe in the purity of writing and dont write to make money, neither want to..
so no copyrights for me.

4 Comments:

Blogger Ranjan Saraswati said...

Interesting, very interesting.

2:34 AM  
Blogger Ranjan Saraswati said...

Copyright is a set of exclusive rights regulating the use of a particular expression of an idea or information. At its most general, it is literally "the right to copy" an original creation. In most cases, these rights are of limited duration. The symbol for copyright is © (Unicode U+00A9), and in some jurisdictions may alternatively be written as either (c) or (C).

Copyright may subsist in a wide range of creative, intellectual, or artistic forms or "works". These include poems, theses, plays, and other literary works, movies, choreographic works (dances, ballets, etc.), musical compositions, audio recordings, paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, software, radio and television broadcasts of live and other performances, and, in some jurisdictions, industrial designs. Copyright is a type of intellectual property; designs or industrial designs may be a separate or overlapping form of intellectual property in some jurisdictions.

Copyright law covers only the particular form or manner in which ideas or information have been manifested, the "form of material expression". It is not designed or intended to cover the actual idea, concepts, facts, styles, or techniques which may be embodied in or represented by the copyright work. Copyright law provides scope for satirical or interpretive works which themselves may be copyrighted.[citation needed] For example, the copyright which subsists in relation to a Mickey Mouse cartoon prohibits unauthorized parties from distributing copies of the cartoon or creating derivative works which copy or mimic Disney's particular anthropomorphic mouse, but does not prohibit the creation of artistic works about anthropomorphic mice in general, so long as they are sufficiently different to not be imitative of the original. Other laws may impose legal restrictions on reproduction or use where copyright does not - such as trademarks and patents.

Copyright laws are standardized through international conventions such as the Berne Convention in some countries and are required by international organizations such as European Union or World Trade Organization from their member states.

British law states that an individual's work is placed under copyright law as soon as it leaves that person's mind and is placed in some physical form, be it a painting, a musical work written in manuscript or an architectural schematic. Once in physical form, as long as it is an original work (in the sense of not having been copied from an existing work, rather than in the sense of being novel or unique), copyright in that work is automatically vested in (i.e. owned by) the person who put the concept into material form. There may be exceptions to this rule, depending on the nature of the work, whether it was created in the course of employment and the purposes for which the work was created. The UK copyright distinctively emphasizes the labour and skill[1] that has gone into the work, which is why some of its basic principle are sometimes referred to as the 'Sweat of the Brow' doctrine. This stands in contrast to the usual emphasis on creativity—most countries have adopted copyright laws that do not consider labour and skill as relevant. The term 'Unfair Use'[2] is sometimes used in this context to refer to the use of a work into which somebody has invested a lot of skill and labour, but where little or no creativity is present. This is mainly relevant for reproduction photography and retouching of public domain work and for 'simple' databases, where, in contrast to collections, no creativity was involved in selecting the records.

Evidentiary issues may arise if the person who authored a work has only their word to prove that the work is original and their own work. The author of an unpublished manuscript or little-known publication, which is remarkably similar to a popular novel, will have an uphill battle convincing a court that the popular novel infringes the copyright in their obscure work. Taking some precautionary steps may help to establish independent creation and authorship.

For example, when a web designer designs a webpage (based upon his own work) under a contract for services, the webmaster owns the copyright in at least the underlying code of that website. A common and simple practice to obtain evidence in favour of authorship is to place the copyright material in an envelope or package together with a document signed by several people stating that they have examined the work prior to it being sealed and that in their opinion it is original. Once this is done the package is mailed to the owner by recorded delivery, which helps to establish when the work was created, who the originator of the work is and that there are signatory validators prepared to state that it is original. Once this process is complete the package and contents may be able to be usable in a court of law as evidence of date of creation (and so priority) if necessary.

German Urheberrecht is a droit d'auteur style law, which means that there is a special emphasis on the relation between the work and its actual author. There is no corporate copyright in Germany and the fundamental rights cannot be transferred except by heritage. However, exclusive licenses are almost as powerful as copyright transfer (and, according to the law, such an exclusive license is given to the employer automatically if the work contract does not make a different arrangement). A significant difference is that licenses can only extend to known uses of the work, so if somebody submitted a scientific paper to a journal before the internet was a known use for them (1995 is usually assumed as a key date), the journal arguably did not obtain the rights for internet distribution according to the Urheberrecht.

Court decisions have set vastly different standards for the eligibility of works of applied art on the one hand and other types of work on the other, especially fine art. While the barrier is usually very low for fine art and protection is granted even for minimal creativity (dubbed 'kleine Münze'), there are extremely high standards for applied art to be reached for it to achieve copyright protection. This is so because Geschmacksmuster (design patents) and Schriftzeichengesetz (typeface patents) are seen as leges speciales for applied art such that the threshold of originality must not be assumed low for them. This has been confirmed by courts several times, especially for logos, but also for earrings.

Since the respective EU directive has been implemented, simple databases enjoy a very limited (15 years) 'sweat of the brow' like protection.

The US Constitution allows Congress to grant exclusive rights to authors in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, also known as the Copyright Clause, which also gives Congress the power to enact statutes: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries. 17 U.S.C. § 105, withholds copyright from all publications produced by the United States Government, and its agents or employees while in their employment. All such work is therefore in the public domain in some sense.

Congress first exercised this power with the enactment of the Copyright Act of 1790, and has changed and updated copyright statutes several times since. The Copyright Act of 1976, though it has been modified since its enactment, is currently the basis of copyright law in the United States.

The length of the copyright term within the United States was extended by the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act which made the copyright term the life of the author plus 70 years for works created after January 1, 1978. In the case of a work of corporate authorship (also known as "Work for Hire") the term will be 95 years from the date of first publication or 120 years from the date of creation, whichever expires first. This legislation was challenged in court and affirmed by the US Supreme Court in the landmark copyright decision, Eldred v. Ashcroft (2003), in which the Supreme Court agreed that the length of the copyright term (ie, during which the copyright holder has a monopoly on its exploitation) could be extended by Congress after the original act of creation and beginning of the copyright term, as long as the extension itself was limited instead of perpetual. The duration of U.S. copyright for works created before 1978 is a complex matter; however, works published before 1923 are all in the public domain. In the US, after the death of a copyright holder, heirs inherit the copyright.

Typically, a work must meet minimal standards of originality in order to qualify for copyright, and the copyright expires after a set period of time (some jurisdictions may allow this to be extended). Different countries impose different tests, although generally the requirements are low; in the United Kingdom there has to be some 'skill, originality and work' which has gone into it. However, even fairly trivial amounts of these qualities are sufficient for determining whether a particular act of copying constitutes an infringement of the author's original expression. In Australia, it has been held that a single word is insufficient to comprise a copyright work.

In the United States, copyright has relatively recently been made automatic (in the style of the Berne Convention), which has had the effect of making it appear to be more like a property right. Thus, as with property, a copyright need not be granted or obtained through official registration with any government office. Once an idea has been reduced to tangible form, for example by securing it in a fixed medium (such as a drawing, sheet music, photograph, a videotape or a letter), the copyright holder is entitled to enforce his or her exclusive rights. However, while a copyright need not be officially registered for the copyright owner to begin exercising his exclusive rights, registration of works (where the laws of that jurisdiction provide for registration) does have benefits; it serves as prima facie evidence of a valid copyright and enables the copyright holder to seek statutory damages and attorney's fees (whereas in the USA, for instance, registering after an infringement only enables one to receive actual damages and lost profits). The original holder of the copyright may be the employer of the actual author rather than the author himself if the work is a "work for hire". Again, this principle is widespread; in English law the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 provides that where a work in which copyright subsists is made by an employee in the course of that employment, the copyright is automatically assigned to the employer.

Copyrights are generally enforced by the holder in a civil law court, but there are also criminal infringement statutes. Criminal sanctions are generally aimed at serious counterfeiting activity, but are now becoming more commonplace as copyright collectives such as the RIAA are, more and more, targeting the file sharing home Internet user. Thus far however, these cases have usually been settled outside of court, with demands of payment of several thousand dollars accompanied by nothing more than a threat to sue the file sharer, which will be ruinous to many defendants in practice, thus such cases rarely make their way to civil law courts.

It is important to understand that absence of the copyright symbol does not mean that the work is not covered by copyright. The work once created from originality through 'mental labor' is instantaneously considered copyrighted to that person.


[edit] Copyright notices
Use of a copyright notice — consisting of the letter C inside of a circle (that is, "©"), the abbreviation "Copr.", or the word "Copyright", followed by the year of the first publication of the work and the name of the copyright holder — was part of previous United States statutory requirements. (Note that the letter C inside of parentheses ("(c)") has never been an officially recognized designator.) But since 1976, when the U.S. passed a new Copyright Act that followed the model of the Berne Convention, the use of copyright notices has become optional to claim copyright, as the Berne Convention makes copyright automatic.[8] However, notice of copyright (using these marks) does have consequences in terms of allowable damages in an infringement lawsuit in some places.

The phrase All rights reserved was once a necessary formal notice that all rights granted under existing copyright law are retained by the copyright holder and that legal action may be taken against copyright infringement. It was provided as a result of the Buenos Aires Convention of 1910, which required some statement of reservation of rights to grant international coverage in all the countries that were signatory to that convention. While it is commonplace to see it, this notice is now superfluous, as every country that is a member of the Buenos Aires Convention is also a member of the Berne Convention, which hold a copyright to be valid in all signatory states without any formality of notice.

This phrase is sometimes still used even on some documents to which the original author does not retain all rights granted by copyright law, such as works released under a copyleft license. It is, however, only a habitual formality and is unlikely to have legal consequences.

Several exclusive rights typically attach to the holder of a copyright:

to produce copies or reproductions of the work and to sell those copies (including, typically, electronic copies)
to import or export the work
to create derivative works (works that adapt the original work)
to perform or display the work publicly
to sell or assign these rights to others
The phrase "exclusive right" means that only the copyright holder is free to exercise the attendant rights, and others are prohibited using the work without the consent of the copyright holder. Copyright is often called a "negative right", as it serves to prohibit people (e.g. readers, viewers, or listeners, and primarily publishers and would be publishers) from doing something, rather than permitting people (e.g. authors) to do something. In this way it is similar to the unregistered design right in English law and European law. The rights of the copyright holder also permit him/her to not use or exploit their copyright for its duration. This means an author can choose to exploit their copyright for some of the duration and then not for the rest, vice versa, or entirely one or the other.

There is however a critique which rejects this assertion as being based on a philosophical interpretation of copyright law as an entity, and is not universally shared. There is also debate on whether copyright should be considered a property right or a moral right. Many argue that copyright does not exist merely to restrict third parties from publishing ideas and information, and that defining copyright purely as a negative right is incompatible with the public policy objective of encouraging authors to create new works and enrich the public domain.

The right to adapt a work means to transform the way in which the work is expressed. Examples include developing a stage play or film script from a novel; translating a short story; and making a new arrangement of a musical work.


Copyright law does not restrict the owner of a copy from reselling legitimately obtained copies of copyrighted works, provided that those copies were originally produced by or with the permission of the copyright holder. It is therefore legal, for example, to resell a copyrighted book or CD. In the United States this is known as the first-sale doctrine, and was established by the courts to clarify the legality of reselling books in second-hand bookstores. Some countries may have parallel importation restrictions that allow the copyright holder of their licensee to control the aftermarket. This may mean for example that a copy of a book that does not infringe copyright in the country where it was printed does infringe copyright in a country into which it is imported for retailing. The first-sale doctrine is known as exhaustion of rights in other countries and is a principle which also applies, though somewhat differently, to patent and trademark rights. It is important to note that the first-sale doctrine permits the transfer of the particular legitimate copy involved. It does not permit making or distributing additional copies.

In addition, copyright, in most cases, does not prohibit one from acts such as modifying, defacing, or destroying his or her own legitimately obtained copy of a copyrighted work, so long as duplication is not involved. However, in countries that implement moral rights, a copyright holder can in some cases successfully prevent the mutilation or destruction of a work that is publicly visible.

Copyright does not prohibit all copying or replication. In the United States, the fair use doctrine, codified by the Copyright Act of 1976 as 17 U.S.C. Section 107, permits some copying and distribution without permission of the copyright holder or payment to same. The statute does not clearly define fair use, but instead gives four non-exclusive factors to consider in a fair use analysis. Those factors are:

the purpose and character of your use
the nature of the copyrighted work
what amount and proportion of the whole work was taken, and
the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
In the United Kingdom and many other Commonwealth countries, a similar notion of fair dealing was established by the courts or through legislation. The concept is sometimes not well defined; however in Canada, private copying for personal use has been expressly permitted by statute since 1999. In Australia, the fair dealing exceptions under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) are a limited set of circumstances under which copyright material can be legally copied or adapted without the copyright holder's consent. Fair dealing uses are research and study; review and critique; news reportage and the giving of professional advice (ie legal advice). Under current Australian law it is still a breach of copyright to copy, reproduce or adapt copyright material for personal or private use without permission from the copyright owner. Other technical exemptions from infringement may also apply, such as the temporary reproduction of a work in machine readable form (eg, in an information technology storage system).

In the United States the AHRA (Audio Home Recording Act Codified in Section 10, 1992) prohibits action against consumers making noncommercial recordings of music, in return for royalties on both media and devices plus mandatory copy-control mechanisms on recorders.

Section 1008. Prohibition on certain infringement actions
No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings.
Later acts amended US Copyright law so that for certain purposes making 10 copies or more is construed to be commercial, but there is no general rule permitting such copying. Indeed making one complete copy of a work, or in many cases using a portion of it, for commercial purposes will not be considered fair use. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act prohibits the manufacture, importation, or distribution of devices whose intended use, or only significant commercial use, is to bypass an access or copy control put in place by a copyright owner. An appellate court has held that fair use is not a defense to engaging in such distribution.

It is absolutely vital to remember that copyright regimes can and do differ between countries, even countries which both adhere to the same copyright Convention. It would be dangerous to assume that an activity permitted by the laws of one country is necessarily permitted elsewhere.

2:39 AM  
Blogger Rax said...

Knowledge is to share .... however if u can make money out of it... gr8!!!!!!!!!

9:48 AM  
Blogger Rax said...

Knowledge is to be shared... however if u can make money out of it.... wat say.. gr8!!!!!!!!!!!

9:49 AM  

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