Copyright and Plagiarism By Ben Donaldson

What is intellectual property? Intellectual property is property that refers to creations of the mind. It is most commonly used in music and art. Intellectual property is also used for inventions, designs, and discoveries. You can protect your intellectual property with trademarks, copyrights, patents, and industrial design rights.

What is Copyright? Copyright is the legal right to distribute and use their work. This law is usually created by a country, and helps give the individual credit and compensation for his or her effort. The only way a copyright law can be put into effect in the US is if that work is ‘fixed’. That means sometimes intellectual property is not protected with copyright. However, in some countries, i.e. Spain and France, the work doesn’t need to be ‘fixed’ for it to be copyrighted. I really all depends on where you are.

What is fair use? Fair use is when a video or object that is copyrighted may be used without the permission of the copyright owner. It is only applied for education, remakes, parodies, or to comment or criticize the work. Also, I am allowed to use this photo, as it is for educational purposes, and is therefore fair use.

What is public domain? Public Domain is when the copyright of an object has expired and it is available to the public for use without copyright infringement. This happens to all pieces of work after a certain amount of time, and it takes, at minimum, 75 years after the author's death. Most of the early silent films now fall under this and all of Shakespeare's and other old playwrights works do as well.

Copyright and the law Copyright is a law of a country, and the rules and laws to vary by country, that protects an individual's right to create and sell certain works of art. There are some copyright agreements that are applied internationally, but most are just for a certain country or area. The duration of a copyright varies between 50 to 100 years after the creator's death.

Star Wars vs Battlestar Galactica Battlestar Galactica, which was produced in the wake of Star Wars, had some ideas that were too close for comfort with Star wars. 34, to be exact. Fox sued Universal Studios for using these ideas, including a character named Skyler(after Skywalker). After this, Universal Studios immediately countersued, saying that Star Wars used ideas from their 1972 film Silent Running, including the walking robots. The court settled the dispute two years later in favor of Battlestar Galactica.

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