Thursday, 27 March 2014

Unit 30 - Task 6

Copyright: An owner of a piece of work, ranging from poetry and stories, to videos and images, can copyright it. This means that anyone who wants to incorporate the piece into their own designs and ideas needs the permission of the original author or has to pay a fee to use it. Copyright laws are in place to prevent people plagiarising other peoples work and claiming it as their own. What some people choose to do is buy rights to use the piece of  work and then put their own spin on it to make it their own.

Copyright Free: Work that can be freely used by anyone without fear of copyright punishment by the author. There are 3 ways in which a piece of work can be copyright free:
1. Copyright was never attached to the work.
2. The copyright was attached but has since expired.
3. The owner of the copyright has permanently surrendered the right to enforce the copyright. 

Intellectual Property:  A concept in law which allows the author to protect an ‘idea’. This could be anything, including a brand, an invention, a design, a song or another intellectual creation. It is described as ‘property’ because, just like other property, it can be owned, sold, transferred, leased or given away.  


Trademark: Trademarks are used to claim exclusive properties of products or services. If the trademark is offensive or falsely advertises however, then the owner may face legal action. Trademarks can be licensed as well as owned. For example: The Lego Group purchased a license from Lucasfilm in order to be allowed to launch Lego Star Wars. The unauthorized usage of trademarks  is known as brand piracy and the owner of the trademark may pursue legal action against trademark infringement. Most countries require formal registration of a trademark in order to pursue this type of action. The United States, Canada and other countries also recognize common law trademark rights, which means action can be taken to protect an unregistered trademark if it is in use. Common law trademarks offer the holder less legal protection than registered trademarks however.

1 comment:

  1. www: Kane this is an extensive report on legal pitfalls when using, creating and editing graphics. You have added many excellent examples and you have covered P6 fully, well done.

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