Understanding Copyright

Copyright - gives the owner, creator or author the rights to control how their content is used.

Such content include films, games, animations, music, computer apps, stories, scripts, lyrics, literary and drawings.
Basically things created as a result of a person's, your own or collaborative effort can be copyrighted so that no one else who wasn't involved gets credit or profits from it.

Things such as copying, adapting, distributing and public transmission without persmission from the content creator is a breach of copyright.

The only case where content belongs to another party other then the creator is when it is sold to said party. However, buying a single copy of something like a game or music CD doesn't mean you own the copyright.

Copyright does have a certain time limit depending on the content:

- Literary, artistic and photographic work: Life of creator + 70 years

- Sound recordings: 70 years

Permission is granted through contacting the owner or organisation who represents them. This is not always necessary unless it's for commercial purposes. Non-commercial, educational, research, private study and teaching is fine.

Claiming copyright can be achieved by:

- Ensuring your work is properly marked: displaying a copyright notice shows your awareness for copyright and infringements of your work.

- Register your work: evidence may be needed to help prove your claim to copyright. Copyright Registration Services can be used to provide proof with a verifiable date and content  of your work.

- Keep or register supporting evidence: proof of evolution of ideas such as early drafts and sketches over a period of time. Posting it to yourself with dated stamp intact will prove it's existance at a certain point in time.

- Contact the person: if your work is being copyrighted contact the person to get to the bottom of the situation.