Copyright is a form of protection given to authors/creators of original works. This property right can be sold or transferred to others.

Copyright is a form of protection grounded in the U.S. Constitution and granted by law for original works of authorship. The current copyright law, the Copyright Act of 1976, is codified in Title 17 of the U.S. Code.

Copyright law assures ownership, which comes with several rights, that the author has exclusively. For example:
Make copies of the work Distribute copies of the work Perform the work publicly Display the work publicly Make derivative works

Copyright holder may grant permission or license anyone else to do these things, without affecting their ownership of the actual copyright in their work. For example, an author may permit a television adaptation of their book to be made and broadcast .

The law provides certain ways in which copyright works may be used without the need to first obtain permission from the copyright holder - these include:

Fair use (e.g. to make copies) Public domain Library privilege Copying for examinations and copying for instruction

Copyright covers both published and unpublished works. Copyright protection is automatic at the moment the work is created and fixed in a tangible form that it is perceptible.

Literary works Dramatic works

Musical works
Artistic works

Not everything is protected by copyright law.

Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation.

Copyright protects original works of authorship, while a patent protects inventions or discoveries. A trademark protects words, phrases, symbols, or designs identifying the source of the goods or services of one party and distinguishing them from those of others.

They want to provide universal access to research, education and culture. Copyright was created long before the emergence of the Internet, and can make it hard to legally perform actions we take for granted on the network: copy, paste, edit source, and post to the Web. The default setting of copyright law requires all of these actions to have explicit permission, granted in advance, whether youre an artist, teacher, scientist, librarian, policymaker, or just a regular user. In order for Creative Commons to achieve the vision of universal access. They provide a free, public, and standardized infrastructure that creates a balance between the reality of the Internet and the reality of copyright laws.

http://creativecommons.org/abou

Under the Teach Act, the Copyright law provides educators with a separate set of rights in addition to fair use, to display and perform others works in the classroom. These rights are entitled in Section 110(1) of the Copyright Act, and apply to any original work an educator wants to use.

Source 1: (n.d.). Retrieved from http://creativecommons.org/about Source 2: Copyright crash course. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://copyright.lib.utexas.edu/index.html Source 3 : Copyright crash course. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://copyright.lib.utexas.edu/teachact.html Source 4: What is copyright?. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.staffs.ac.uk/legal/copyright/what_is_copyright/ Source 5: Copyright in general. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faqgeneral.html

Source 6: (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/stopping-internetplagiarism/your-copyrights-online/1-what-is-a-copyright/

Source 7: (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.copyrightkids.org/whatcopyframes.htm