Copyright is a form of legal
protection for people who produce writings,
images, music and films. It is a legal right to prevent others
from doing such things such as copying and making
available online without permission.
"Intellectual property is a general term covering a number of
areas of law. These include copyright, trademarks and
patents.
Things that can be protected by copyright include writing,
visual images, music, computer programs and films. Copyright protects the way an idea or information is
expressed, but not the idea or information itself.
You do not need to publish your work, to put a copyright
notice on it or to do anything else to be covered by
copyright — the protection is free and automatic. There are no
forms to fill and there are no fees to be paid. You do not
have to send your work to anyone else.
A work is protected automatically from the time it is first
written down or recorded in some way, provided that it has resulted
from its creator’s skill and effort and is not simply copied
from another work. For example, as soon as a poem is written,
or a song is recorded, it is already protected.
Copyright is international and works are protected in
most countries.
If one's work is original one can be assured that it is
protected by Copyright. However Copyright will not prevent
anyone from copying and using your work as their own, except
where damage to reputation or punitive damages can be claimed.
In most cases, the infringement will not be known and even if
detected, it may be a risk expecting to at least reclaim the
court costs.
Everyone copies! You only have to take a look at the
advertising and entertainment industry to appreciate what they
consider fair game... and that is all and everything.
Advertising agents use other people's ideas and even borrow
the images to make over. And the audio visual industry, the
one screaming the loudest about the need to prevent
unauthorized distribution of copies is no different. Otherwise,
we would not have so many remakes of remakes.
For anyone publishing media digitally, especially via the
Internet, they are inviting plagiarism and the immediate devaluation of their creativity. With digital content, it can
be copied in numerous ways and reproduced in the best quality
that is as good as the original using almost any old computer and
printer. Preventing the copy of digital content is extremely
difficult and in most cases, almost impossible. Not only is it
accessible in so many different ways, thanks to the way that
developers design their solutions to appease the
majority, but most technologies used to prevent copying can or
have been reversed by other developers who are hell bent on
sabotaging everything simply because it exists.
At best, we can only hope to slow down the expert hackers
and prevent mass copying by the newbie masses. At least, it is better than letting everyone have it for free and
immediately devaluing your livelihood.
If you don't want it copied, then do not make it easy for pirates to do so. Don't rely on their integrity and remove the temptation by making it as difficult as possible to copy. Mind you, there are some copy prevention methods that do work and in the right environment, some can be unbeatable. The copy protection solutions presented on this website are the best for their technique/media.