Copyright issues

Copyright is the term that refers to the legal right that protects the use of their work It is a set of rules and principles, by which the law grants rights to authors for the sole fact of the creation of a work. The reason why this is done is to design legal rules about how people’s intellectual work can be used.

The copyright and patent design law assumes that the original owner of a copyright is the original creator of the intellectual property but it must be taken into account that any work that is created by an employee in the course of its use grants ownership of the employer’s copyright. This is usually part of the employees contract.

Within the world wide economy the United Kingdom has one of the strongest creative sectors in the world. In that if you consider that government statistics published in January 2014, has proved that the creative industry generates an average of £8million every hour. Therefore consider each time you watch an online video or listen to music (as two simple examples) you are enjoying something creative in that you are interacting with copyright in some way. 

The purpose of copyright is to provide protection to the creator against unauthorized duplication of his intellectual property. Intellectual property can include creative works such as books, films, music, paintings, software and ideas. The duration of the copyright varies according to the work and can expire, when this happens the intellectual property becomes public domain.

An internet user who uses an unauthorised copy of someone’s intellectual property or work is violating the copyright owner’s rights. Users need to be aware that the ability to use text or someone else’s images whilst being online is relatively simple, the act of using it for your own purposes is not legal.  In fact copyright infringement is a punishable crime. The use of an unauthorized copy of the intellectual property in an illegal act as it is violating the rights of the owner of the copyright.