copyright

what is copyright:

protection of stolen work,

companies can buy out the copyright of books to make films so they own the copyright 

music industry stealing musical notes to put it songs and you breach copyright by using the notes without permission. 

copyright protects: 

books,

dramatic works like dance

music

art work

motion pictures 

sounds 

architectural

copyright doesn't protect:

if something has not been written down in an tangible form. it has to be in tangible existence to be copyrighted.

titles, names, short phrases, slogans, familiar symbols and designs,

ideas procedures, methods, systems, processes, concepts, principles, discoveries,

works consisting entirely of information that is common property no authorship e.g calendars, tap measures

what is fair use? 

reproduction for some work may be considered fair use when used for:

parody, teaching, criticism or comments, news reporting  

something that doesn't change the value of the work in the marketplace

fair use is only a guideline and not a law. 

if you affect the value of the work you reproduces, you are breaching the copyright law,

you must consider factors when deterring fair use:

the purpose of the work ( non-profit or commercial)

the nature of the copyright work ( transformative or a copy)

the amount of the work that will be used

the effect on the market value of the copyrighted work ( competition for the original) 

looking at a 30 page essay and you use 100 words you could argue fair use, but if they had a 500 word essay and you take 300 then you are breaching copyright, or using an image that has copyright and only changing an effect on it. its copyright because you used the complete original image.

public domain:

copyright only last 70 years

content no longer controlled of owned by anyone. items in the public domain may be freely:

adapted  

used

distributed

used for any given purpose you like without having to seek the permission of any copyright owners. 

creative commons:

free licenses you add to your copyrighted work making it easier to share and allow other people to build upon your work

multiple different licences exist: 

attribution

share alike

non commercial

no derivative work

and there are many others.