So, first off I am not a lawyer, and if I was I wouldn't be your lawyer! So this isn't legal advice (and yeah on this topic that is very important). If you are creating things like novels, short stories, photographs, videos, music, etc. you should find a guide for your particular countries copyright law and read through it. If you are creating stuff or uploading to a site based in another country then you should read up on the laws there. Here's a UK link to start with but again it varies a lot by country : https://library.leeds.ac.uk/info/1405/copyright/33/copyright_explained My summaries, you can find better out there(google it!!!), to various questions. 1) What is copyright and who does it cover? Years ago various governments decided that creators should be able to control and make money off their creations for some amount of time. That is the fundamental idea, that people creating something should have some kind of control for a set time. It doesn't protect ideas, facts, or thoughts, only a particular expression of them. As in it doesn't let people copyright the idea of a romance set in Rome, only a particular romance set in Rome. Copyright wasn't universal though at the start so many US publishing companies got their start taking works by people like Charles Dickens and reprinting them with no money to the author. English printing companies would do the same for works by American authors. Eventually countries decided to honor each others copyrights with agreements. However that sets the base on a countries particular copyright law. Many countries have extensive copyright law on top of that base. For example a French music creator and an American music creator have the same basic rights governed by international treaty, but they have different additional rights depending on their local laws. Your country might not be part of the international agreements but you might still have copyright law inside your country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_international_copyright_agreements 2) Does it only cover officially published works? No, generally if you fixed it to a copy it is then protected. Meaning when you wrote it down in a word processor or took a picture with a digital camera it is protected from then on. There can be more protections and damages though if you have registered it depending on your local laws. For example if you register a photograph with the US Copyright office before someone infringes on it then you can get extra money in damages and other fees. 3) But I 'did fair use' so I can do whatever! Exceptions in copyright vary. Generally most of the people on YouTube I've seen who aren't big creators(the biggest creators usually have lawyers or learned the hard way at some point) are usually flat out stealing other people's copyrighted material and if the original creator wanted to they could sue them into the ground. Sometimes they are stealing from bigger creators like Disney and people often give them a pass because who cares about big corporations? Often though they are stealing things like photos and other works from small broke ass photographers and other creators. Exceptions to Copyright also vary by country, but are generally meant to allow some kind of discussion of the works without triggering a lawsuit. For example here is a link to the US Fair use, which governs YouTube and other US companies. https://www.lib.purdue.edu/uco/CopyrightBasics/fair_use.html#first The above isn't a checklist though, it is something that the judge balances. Someone might think because their 'fair use' ticks one box that they are safe and end up paying deeply for it. 4) What happens when Lawyers get involved? In the US lawsuits on copyright can cost from $100,000 on upwards to pursue or defend against, and judgements per infringement can be up to $150,000 in some cases. The fact is most people won't be sued because they could never pay the plaintiff if/when they lost and the person suing will likely end in the hole because they can't get back their fees. That doesn't deter threats of lawsuits though, and some people pursue lawsuits on principal(or sheer raw hate) even if they will lose money. 5) What does it mean for you, as a creator? It depends, if you are creating fan fictions or works based on other people's work then things can get iffy if the original creator is upset. If you create a BL fanfic about the TV show Supernatural then you have a copyright on your work. No one else owns it. However your work might infringe on their characters, settings and other stuff in the show, or any spin-off novels and other works. They could pursue the copyright on it. That would never give them the ownership of your work, but they could sue for any money you made from it, extra damages for the infringement (even if you made no money you can be sued for damage!), and block you from distributing it. If on the other hand people take your work, such as a popular free illustrated novel you made and commercialize it by making T-Shirts, a movie or other works you could sue them. Edit: 6) What did I just do when I uploaded my photo/book/etc to a site? When you upload a photo to Instagram, a video to YouTube, a novel to Scribblehub, you are allowing them certain usage of it. For example without those permissions being granted Instagram couldn't show your image to anyone else, not even your friends. You can give away the copyright of your work! Generally that is a bad, bad, mad idea. Most sites will only request limited rights or licenses. Reading the terms and conditions of an agreement or contract you enter in with say a publisher, a contest, a site, is vitally important. For example entering a short story writing contest will often grant the content owners the right to display your entry in full. In the worst cases it might grant them the right to collect and publish them in an anthology without compensating you. 7) Takeaway! If you are an original creator you have rights, find out what they are. If you are creating something based on someone else's creation then you have some rights but a lot less. And that's why you should try to understand it before it bites you in the ass someday. Finally, if you are interested you can watch channels like Leonard French on YouTube, his videos cover many copyright lawsuits in the US at various points. From filing, final judgements, or appeals and other steps in between.
Rare meaningful gems on nuf that go undetected. Gracias senore. This should be an awareness to anyone thinking of publishing stories on wordpad, Wattpad, or any other sites.
Example look at your profile pic, if it wasn't you that drew it, photograph it, etc and you just google it, then it is probably copyright infrigment
Yep, the original photographer has a copyright and could sue the person who added the wording and cropped it. They might or might not win. If they lose then the person who modified the picture could sue me and others who use the modified picture. If the original creator wins then they could sue me. Provided the original creator didn't put it up as a stock photo for sale, or set it as royalty free artwork. In the stock photo sale case they still can limit the number of uses, maximum sale and other terms if they set that as part of the sale agreement. Even as royalty free work they could have some type of moral clause attached to the licence. And if it was something like a work for hire, then the company the photographer took the picture for could sue since they would own the copyright as part of their deal with the photographer. And those are just the cases I can think of, there's likely a bunch I've never thought of.