Legal and Moral Issues Related to Information: Copyright and Fair use

Copyright:

• the exclusive and assignable legal right, given to the originator for a fixed number of years, to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material:
• a particular literary, artistic, or musical work that is covered by copyright.

 "copyright noun"  Oxford Dictionary of English. Edited by Angus Stevenson. Oxford University Press, 2010. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.  BIC - American University in Bulgaria.  25 July 2011 

Fair Use

• (in US copyright law) the doctrine that brief excerpts of copyright material may, under certain circumstances, be quoted verbatim for purposes such as criticism, news reporting, teaching, and research, without the need for permission from or payment to the copyright holder.

"fair use n."  New Oxford American Dictionary. Edited by Angus Stevenson and Christine A. Lindberg. Oxford University Press, 2010. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.  BIC - American University in Bulgaria.  25 July 2011  

Copyright regulates all kinds of reproducing of copyrighted information - copying, translating, broadcasting, etc. The goal of the copyright law is to protect original creators of intellectual property. Once an original work is created, it is automatically considered to be copyrighted. The owner can then give up some or all rights to his intellectual property  to someone else.  After the expiration of the copyright, it is transfered to the public domain. but even after the expiration of the copyright, giving credit is advisable.

US Copyright Law

EU Copyright Law

Bulgarian Copyright Law

Fair use doctrine 1976 - "permitted the moderate use of copyrighted materials for purposes such as education, news reporting, criticism, parody, and even (in some contexts) home consumption, as long as those activities did not substantially impair the copyright owners’ abilities to exploit “potential markets.”"