Copyright: IMPACT guide to the essentials

Introduction
This is an overview of the law of copyright in the UK. It is aimed at businesses rather than lawyers, so we don't go into oodles of detail about legal issues that are of little interest to most businesses.

If you want...

• A general overview of intellectual property rights, see: Intellectual property: IMPACT guide to the essentials
• A guide to intellectual property disputes, see: Intellectual property disputes: IMPACT guide to the essentials

Overview

• Copyright protects what the law describes as “copyright works” – for example books, music, websites and computer software.
• It does not cover designs for 3-dimensional industrial/commercial products.
• Copyright gives the owner of a work the exclusive right to do certain things with it, the most obvious being the right to make copies of the work.
• Copyright arises automatically – you don’t have to register it anywhere.
• An employer usually owns the copyright in anything created by an employee.
• When you’re not dealing with an employer/employee relationship, the person who creates the work usually owns the copyright, even if they’ve been commissioned by someone else to do it. This can be a complicated area and the best policy is to agree who will own the copyright in advance, in writing.

What benefits does copyright give?
The purpose of copyright is to allow creators to gain economic rewards for their efforts. Copyright material is usually the result of creative skill, effort or investment, and without protection, it would often be very easy for someone else to exploit this material without paying anything for it.

Copyright gives creators of certain works the right to control the various ways in which their material may be exploited. This right of control includes:

• Copying
• Adapting
• Performing
• Broadcasting
• Issuing, renting and lending copies to the public

Even when the person who has created the copyright work does not own the copyright in it, or has granted someone a licence to use it, they may have what the law calls “moral rights” to be identified as the author or to object to someone adapting the work beyond what’s reasonable (i.e. they “distort” or “mutilate” it).

What does copyright cover?
Copyright covers the following types of work:

• Literary
• Dramatic
• Musical
• Artistic
• Published editions
• Sound recordings
• Films
• Broadcasts

To get copyright protection the work does not have to be of high quality or creative merit – it will be enough if it is new in the sense that it is not simply a copy of something that’s already been done.

I’ve had a great idea. Can copyright protect it?
Copyright does not protect ideas – only the expression of ideas that fall into one of the categories of works discussed above. The gap between ideas (not protectable) and the expression of ideas (protectable) is a long established distinction in copyright law and was famously illustrated in the Da Vinci Code case in 2006. The story of the legal action is…

• It involved Dan Brown’s international best seller, “The Da Vinci Code”. For those of you that haven’t read the Da Vinci Code, this is a work of fiction that revolves around various conspiracy theories to do with the Holy Grail, and a search for the Holy Grail.
• Dan Brown was sued by the authors of the non-fictional book “The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail”, which was first published in 1982.
• The authors claimed that Dan Brown’s book infringed their copyright by taking its “central theme”. The authors did not claim that Dan Brown’s book copied any sections of their book.
• The High Court ruled that “The Da Vinci Code” did not infringe “The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail”. The reason was that, according to the Judge, “the facts and the themes and the ideas cannot be protected but how those facts, themes and ideas are put together … can be”.
• The Judge ruled that Dan Brown’s book did not copy how the facts, themes or ideas were put together, so there could not be copyright infringement.

Do I need to register my copyright?
You do not need to register copyright in the UK because the legislation says it arises automatically. There are no forms to complete or fees to pay. All you have to be able to do is establish that you own the copyright which, depending on the circumstances, will either be proof that you created it or proof that you acquired it from someone else.

Copyright generally lasts for as long as the person who created it is alive, plus seventy years after they die. However, for films, sound recordings and broadcasts, protection is shorter - fifty years from first showing, and there’s a special sort of copyright in the typographical arrangement of books etc, and that lasts for twenty-five years from the date it was first published.

What about industrial/commercial designs?
Generally, you will not be able to rely on your copyright to stop others manufacturing industrial/commercial products – this will be covered by design law (see our separate guide).

Does copyright protect computer programs, websites, databases and things on the Internet?
Computer programs and websites are protected by copyright. Converting a program between computer languages, storing or running a program on a computer, even displaying a program on a monitor may be infringements of copyright.

Databases have two sorts of protection. If someone copies the whole or a substantial part of a database, this may well be copyright infringement. If someone takes data from a database, rather than the database as a whole, this may be an infringement of database right. The database right doesn’t automatically cover all databases however – only those which meet rather strict criteria to do with the amount of time, effort or money spent creating the data or verifying existing data. The database right lasts for 15 years from the date the database was put together.

Under UK law, copyright material sent over the Internet or stored on web servers will generally be protected.

Is there anything I can do to protect my copyright?
As already explained, there’s no registration procedure for copyright.

But it is worth marking your copyright work where possible (e.g. © Joe Bloggs [date copyright created]). It’s not obligatory in the UK (in some countries it’s more of an issue) but it might affect the amount of damages you get in the event you take legal action against someone who argues that they didn’t realise the work was copyright protected – if you’ve marked it as copyright protected they’re in a weak position!

What are the rules about ownership?
In most cases, the owner of copyright in a work is the person who created the work. However, if the person creates the work as an employee, the owner is the employer.

When you’re not dealing with an employer/employee relationship, the person who creates the work usually owns the copyright, even if they’ve been commissioned by someone else to do it (e.g. you get a freelance designer to design your company logo, or a freelance photographer to take photos for you). This can be a complicated area and the best policy is to agree who will own the copyright in advance, in writing.

Copyright will stay with the original owner (and, after their death, their estate) unless expressly transferred to someone else. Copyright exists independently of the medium on which the work is recorded – so if a painter sells a painting to someone, all he’s selling is the physical painting, he isn’t selling his copyright too (unless for some reason that’s been explicitly included as part of the terms of the sale)

How do I get copyright outside the UK?
Work protected by UK copyright is usually, but not always, protected under the national laws of other countries.