Electronic Resources in the Virtual Learning

What is copyright?
Copyright is part of a wider group of rights known as ‘intellectual
property’, which also includes designs, trademarks and patents. Its
definition as a property right is significant because, as with other
property, copyright can be bought, sold or transferred to another.
Copyright gives the owner the exclusive right to activities such as
copying the work and issuing copies of the work to the public, although
the exact wording varies between countries. In many countries, licensing
agreements allow individuals to go beyond the provisions set out in the
law. Licences are, however, governed by contract law and are not part of
copyright law.
For a work to be subject to copyright, Cornish (2001) argues it needs
to meet the following three criteria:
■
it must be original;
■
it must be fixed in some way;
■
it must be created by an author from a country which recognises
copyright.
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Copyright and licensing digital texts
There is a wide spectrum of materials in which copyright exists,
including some quite obvious sources like books, newspaper articles and
the script of a play, but letters, web pages and even e-mail messages also
fall into this description. Copyright also includes artistic works that can
be not just paintings and sculpture, but also architectural plans,
photographs and even a doodle drawn by a child in school.
Copyright does not exist in ideas. Therefore, copyright is not infringed
if an individual takes another person’s writings or drawings and adapts
them, producing their own version of the work, provided it is original
and the initial piece of work was not copied. Finally, copyright, unlike
other intellectual property rights such as patents or trademarks, does not
have to be registered in any way to apply. In the US, registration of
copyright can be done through the US Copyright Office, but this is not
compulsory. You will notice that many copyright works include the
internationally recognised copyright symbol ©. However, this symbol
merely acts as a reminder to the reader that copyright exists in the work,
and because a work does not have this symbol never assume that it is not
a copyright work.
Who owns copyright?
Copyright is generally owned by the primary author of a work; however,
because it is a property right, it can be bought, sold or licensed to
someone else. If there are joint authors to a work, then copyright can be
owned jointly, but a contract would usually set out the primary author
and owner of copyright. The only exception is work that is produced in
the course of your employment, wherein the copyright lies with the
employer. For example, under UK employment law, the work of a
librarian employed to teach students information literacy at the
University of London belongs not to the individual, but to the university.
International copyright agreements
Most countries throughout the world have copyright laws that protect
the rights of their nationals. However, ‘international copyright law’ does
not exist to automatically protect an author’s writings throughout the
entire world and protection in a particular country depends on the
national laws of that country. Most countries in the world do offer
protection to foreign works under certain conditions. Over the years,
these conditions have been greatly simplified by international copyright
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Electronic Resources in the Virtual Learning Environment
treaties and conventions. The first international recognition of copyright
was the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic
Works issued in 1886. Before this, works by foreign nationals were not
protected outside of their country of origin, so a work published in
France, for example, could be freely reproduced in the UK. The US did
not sign up to the Convention because it would have required major
changes to its copyright laws. However, in 1952 in Geneva, UNESCO
developed the Universal Copyright Convention (UCC) to cater for those
countries, such as the US, that did not adhere to Berne.
Since 1967, the convention has been administered by WIPO (the World
Intellectual Property Organisation). WIPO is a specialised agency of the
United Nations defining itself as:
An international organization dedicated to promoting the use and
protection of works of the human spirit. These works – intellectual
property – are expanding the bounds of science and technology and
enriching the world of the arts.
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