Copyright - What is copyright?
In general, copyright is a mechanism for protecting a piece of creative work.
In the UK, copyright protection covers a “closed list” of subject matter, meaning to get copyright protection in the UK a work must fall into one of the following eight categories:
- Artistic works (for example, paintings, sculptures, photographs or works of artistic craftsmanship)
- Musical works (works of music, which do not contain any words)
- Literary works (for example, books, databases, poems, computer programs or song lyrics)
- Dramatic works (for example dance or mime)
- Films
- Sound recordings
- Broadcasts
- Typographical arrangements of published editions
Copyright only provides protection against people copying your work. Thus, if someone can prove that they independently created the same or a very similar work, they will not infringe your copyright protection.
How long does the protection last?
The term of copyright protection differs for the different types of work and in most cases, it depends on the author. For literary, dramatic, artistic, and musical works the general rule is that protection lasts 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the author dies. Where there are multiple authors, this is calculated from the year in which the last author dies.
For films the term of protection is 70 years from the last to die of principal director, the author of the screenplay, the author of the dialogue and the composer of the music for the film or 70 years from the film being made available to the public.
For sound recordings, protection lasts 50 years from when the recording was made or 70 years from publication. For broadcasts, protection lasts for 50 years after the broadcast was first made. For typographical arrangements, protection lasts 25 years after the year of first publication.
Copyright protection arises automatically, so as long as all the requirements are met, you can assert your rights as soon as the work has been made / published / broadcast.
How do I get copyright protection?
The requirements for protection differ for the different categories of works; literary, dramatic, and musical works require fixation, originality, and qualification; artistic works require originality and qualification; and films, sound recordings, broadcasts, and typographical arrangements only require qualification.
Fixation simply means that the work has been recorded in material form.
Originality relates to the author’s expression of ideas (where the author is the person who created the work) and requires that the work represents the author’s own intellectual creation, and that the work reflects their personality and their free and creative choices.
Qualification can either be achieved by authorship, first publication or first transmission. To achieve qualification by authorship, the author must be a ‘qualifying person’. The full list of qualifying people is laid out in section 154(1) of the CDPA, and this includes any British citizen or resident. To achieve qualification by first publication, a work must be first published in the UK or another country to which the CDPA applies. For qualification by first transmission, a work must be first made or sent from the UK or a country to which the CDPA applies.