Copyright: the basics

Copyright: the basics

Copyright is an intellectual property right. In the UK, copyright is set out in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and related legislation. 

The Act recognises eight different types of protectable works. These are often grouped into the so-called authorial works, which includes literary, dramatic, musical and artistic ones, and entrepreneurial works - which covers films, sound recordings, broadcasts and typographic layouts.

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What does copyright give you?

Broadly speaking, the creator of a copyright work gets the right to stop any other person from doing any of the restricted acts with that work, unless they have granted that person a licence to do the particular act, or the person can rely on a copyright legal exception. The restricted acts are sometimes called the economic rights, as they can allow rights holders to profit from their creations.

Economic

These deal with copying and dissemination of works, and are the exclusive rights to:

• copy the work (reproduction right)

• issue (physical) copies to the public (distribution right)

• rent or lend the work to the public

• perform, show or play in public 

• communicate to the public (electronically, e.g. posting online)

• adapt the work (e.g. translation)

Moral 

The creators of authorial works, and some films, may also benefit from moral rights. These include:

• Right to be identified as the author (right of paternity)

• Right to object to derogatory treatment of the work (right of integrity) 

• Right to not have works falsely attributed to them

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Duration of copyright

Duration of copyright may depend upon whether a work is published or unpublished, and whether the identity of the creator is known/unknown.

This table outlines the duration of copyright protection for a variety of material types in the UK. For a full guide to duration see the UK IPO copyright term notice. The length of protection may vary in other countries. Once works are out of copyright they enter the public domain and are available to reuse.

Type of material	Duration of copyright
Literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works	70 years from death of author If several authors, 70 years following death of last surviving author
Computer-generated literary works	50 years from date of creation
Sound recordings	50 years from date of recording, or 70 years from date of publication
Films	70 years following the last death of: director, author of dialogue, author of screenplay, composer of soundtrack
Broadcasts	50 years from date of broadcast
Typographical layout	25 years from publication
Crown copyright	125 years from publication
Unpublished anonymous works created before 1 August 1989	Copyright expires on 31 December 2039

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The public domain

A work being freely accessible does not mean it is free to reuse without restrictions. The great majority of literary and artistic works found online will still be protected. In copyright terms, the public domain refers to works in which copyright no longer subsists. This is usually because the work is sufficiently old for copyright to have expired. Works pass into the public domain on the 1st January of the year after the term of protection ends. Works entering the public domain for time-bound reasons cannot become protected again in UK law, though they can be incorporated in new works, the original parts of which may qualify for protection.

Some works enter the public domain immediately due to the conditions for copyright protection not being present. Facts and scientific laws, for example, cannot be protected by copyright. Most US Government works are automatically in the public domain. It is also possible for authors to dedicate their works into the public domain using legal tools, such as the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. Once a work is in the public domain, by whatever route, it can be freely used and copied without needing to seek further permission.