Copyright and the computer user

Copyright is the right of the creator of a work to control how that work is used.

The copyright holder may grant licences to certain people to use that work for certain purposes.

What is copyright?

The author of any creative work – be it written work, music, photograph, illustration or software, automatically holds copyright in that work.

Who owns copyright?

literary works, including novels, instruction manuals, computer programs, song lyrics, newspaper articles and some types of database

dramatic works, including dance or mime musical works artistic works, including paintings, engravings,

photographs, sculptures, collages, architecture, technical drawings, diagrams, maps and logos

layouts or typographical arrangements used to publish a work, for a book for instance

recordings of a work, including sound and film broadcasts of a work

◦ .

What types of work are covered?

It is an offence to perform any of the following acts without the consent of the owner:◦ Copy the work.◦ Rent, lend or issue copies of the work to the public.◦ Perform, broadcast or show the work in public.◦ Adapt the work.

The author of a work, or a director of a film may also have certain moral rights:◦ The right to be identified as the author.◦ Right to object to derogatory treatment.

Restricted acts

Fair dealing is a term used to describe acts which are permitted to a certain degree without infringing the work, these acts are:◦ Private and research study purposes.◦ Performance, copies or lending for educational purposes.◦ Criticism and news reporting.◦ Incidental inclusion.◦ Copies and lending by librarians.◦ Acts for the purposes of royal commissions, statutory enquiries,

judicial proceedings and parliamentary purposes.◦ Recording of broadcasts for the purposes of listening to or viewing

at a more convenient time, this is known as time shifting.◦ Producing a back up copy for personal use of a computer program.◦ Playing sound recording for a non profit making organisation, club

or society.

Acts that are allowed

When you pay for software, it does not become your property. What you are buying is a licence to use it. The terms of that licence will be very precisely expressed in the terms of use. Here is an example from Microsoft – their Office 2007 Home and Student edition:◦ 1. OVERVIEW. These license terms permit installation and use of

one copy of the software on one device, along with other rights, all as described below.

◦ 2. INSTALLATION AND USE RIGHTS. Before you use the software under a license, you must assign that license to one device. That device is the “licensed device.” A hardware partition or blade is considered to be a separate device.

◦ a. Licensed Device. You may install and use one copy of the software on the licensed device.

◦ b. Portable Device. You may install another copy on a portable device for use by the single primary user of the licensed device.

Computer software

With a Creative Commons license, the copyright holder retains copyright, but allows people to copy and distribute the work provided they give the copyright holder credit. The copyright holder can choose the conditions under which the work can be used.

Creative commons

Works are in the public domain if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all, if the intellectual property rights have expired, and/or if the intellectual property rights are forfeited

Public domain

This material is subject to the same laws as all other published work.

Material on the WWW

Intellectual Property Office – about copyright

Creative Commons

Links