Home Schooling with Writing.com

Contents
         -Copyright Is the Law
         -Situations of Fair Use
         -Derivative Works
         -The Limitations of Copyright


Copyright Is the Law

         Copyright laws in the United States are very important for an author to be able to control their own creations. If a work is copyrighted, the author alone- or someone with their permission- can copy the original creation, sell it, or create “derivative works” based on it [see section below]. These laws may involve more than a book or an essay: perhaps a poem, a non-fictional story or a fictional one, a photo, a film, a painting, a song... any creative work an author might want to protect.

Situations of Fair Use

         There are cases in which it may be allowable to use another person’s work in a certain way. This is called “fair use”, and there are specific rules about what exactly is permitted. First of all, another author’s work may never be presented as your own. This is out-right plagiarism, and is obviously unacceptable by copyright laws. Someone may use parts of an article to write a review of it, but must specify the parts that are someone else’s work. An author’s rights should be respected in every situation, and you should always limit the amount of “borrowing” you do.
Basically, fair use covers purposes such as news reporting, research, teaching, or criticism (reviewing). In all these cases, someone may use portions of another work, but never in such a way that destroys or detracts from the original creation.

Derivative Works

         You might think that you can get around issues of plagiarism by simply taking someone’s idea and adapting or reworking it for your own purposes. However, this too is prevented by the protection of copyrights. For instance, a film studio that wishes to produce a sequel or a remake of a classic movie would first have to obtain the rights to the original. It would be no different if you wrote a great sequel to your favorite novel; you could never publicly distribute anything of the sort without obtaining the proper permission. This can even apply to foreign translations of a book, or putting new words to a popular musical melody (even without the lyrics, an original song is protected).

The Limitations of Copyright

         First of all, a copyright does not last forever. But it will outlast the author as its effect lasts for 70 years after their death. That is, unless the copyright is inherited and renewed by someone else, such as the author’s children. After that it expires, and the work becomes “public domain”. This means there is no copyright for classic stories like Grimm’s fairy tales, or for Beethoven’s symphonies (for one thing, our copyright laws were not in effect when those people were alive). You could easily take one of these and create your own derivative work based on it, and even get a copyright for your own version. This is what Disney did with his fairy tale adaptations. Once again, this only applies to works in the “public domain”, that is: creations that were never copyrighted, or whose copyright has expired.


See the following article for a more detailed explanation of copyrights: