Copyright Infringements
Introduction
Copyright infringement is the unauthorised use of copyrighted material in a manner that violates one of the copyright owner's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works that build upon it. There are many different ways copyright owners may find their copyright has been infringed. For example, in the film and music industry, infringing activities include the following:
Bootlegging
Where recordings are made of live performances without the performers' consent; Bootleg recordings are musical recordings that have not been officially released by the artist or their associated management or production companies. They may consist of demos, out takes or other studio material, or of illicit recordings of live performances. Music enthusiasts may use the term "bootleg" to differentiate these otherwise unavailable recordings from "pirated" copies of commercially released material, but these recordings are still protected by copyright despite their lack of formal release, and their distribution is still against the law. The slang term bootleg (derived from the use of the shank of a boot for the purposes of smuggling) is often used to describe illicitly copied material.
Piracy
The illegal copying of music products that have been released without permission from the copyright owner. Common ways this is done are by copying music onto or from a cassette, CD, a hard drive or the Internet. Pirate products are not necessarily packaged in the same way as the original, as opposed to counterfeit products (see below);
Counterfeiting
Involves duplication of both the music product and of its packaging. For this reason unwitting buyers are less able to recognise counterfeit copies than is the case with some pirate copies.
Plagiarism
Is theft of another person's writings or ideas. Generally, it occurs when someone steals expressions from another author's composition and makes them appear to be his own work. Plagiarism is not a legal term; however, it is often used in lawsuits. Courts recognize acts of plagiarism as violations of copyright law, specifically as the theft of another creator's intellectual property. Because copyright law allows a variety of creative works to be registered as the property of their owners, lawsuits alleging plagiarism can be based on the appropriation of any form of writing, music, and visual images
Footnote
It is illegal for anyone to violate any of the rights provided by the copyright law to the owner of copyright. These rights, however, are not unlimited in scope. In some cases, these limitations are specified exemptions from copyright liability. One major limitation is the doctrine of “fair use,” which is given a statutory basis in section 107 of the 1976 Copyright Act. In other instances, the limitation takes the form of a “compulsory license” under which certain limited uses of copyrighted works are permitted upon payment of specified royalties and compliance with statutory conditions.
