Copyright is a form of intellectual property law which is automatically granted to content creators. Copyright laws aim to preserve the rights of original authors, to prevent unauthorised use or reproduction of their work, and to incentivise creators to keep creating.
Copyright protects original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture. Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, methods, concepts, principles or discoveries - although it may protect the way these things are expressed.
Generally speaking, copyrights are held by the creator of the material. However, there are a couple of exceptions:
- Works made for hire - the party or employer who hired the creator is considered the author, even if the employee actually created the work. The employer can be a firm, an organisation, an institution or an individual.
- Fair Use content - a provision to make certain use of copyrighted works without obtaining permission
- Public Domain content