What is copyright for?

Copyright rewards creators and benefits society.

Copyright protects human expression. That’s everything from your tweets and texts to great albums, art and novels. It’s not just about artistry. It also protects lots of dull business materials, such as instruction manuals, contracts, computer programs … or this blog.

So everyone makes lots of copyright works. But, generally, copyright only really matters to those who earn a living from creativity. 

Copyright is vital to creators and creative industries. It enables creatives (authors, artists, musicians, etc.) and creative industries (music, publishing, news, etc.) to control their work and to monetise it.

Copyright exists to benefit both individuals and society as a whole. 

Copyright is a fundamental human right. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights says: “Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.”

And, by enabling creators to control and monetise their work, copyright promotes creativity across society. For example, the US constitution gives the government the power “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”

How does copyright work?

Under international law (which most countries have signed) copyright applies automatically.  Many countries require the work to be recorded (or “fixed”) in some way first. Some countries also allow copyright to be registered with their copyright authorities – that isn’t a requirement but can provide advantages, such as special remedies for infringement in the US.

The creator of the work owns the copyright unless ownership passes to someone else, such as an employer, because of a legal rule or contract.

Copyright gives the owner exclusive rights to reproduce the work. There are various rights, such as publishing, translating, adapting, performing and broadcasting. 

The owner can sell the copyright to someone else or license it. The copyright in a work, such as a book, might be licensed many times – such as to publish it in a specific country, to adapt it for stage, cinema, television or radio, to serialise it in a newspaper … and to use it for AI training.

The limits of copyright

Copyright lasts for a fixed period and then the work becomes “public domain” – free for anyone to copy. The period of time depends on the type of work and the country. For example, UK copyright in a book ends 70 years after the author dies.

Copyright only applies to expression – such as the way an author phrases a sentence – and not the ideas or information in a work. That keeps ideas and information free for society to use (unless protected in other ways, such as a patent covering an invention). Sometimes the boundary between ideas and expression is nuanced – a detailed storyline might be protected by copyright.

Copyright prevents another person reproducing a work exactly or copying a substantial part of the copyright work. Naturally, there are debates over what counts as a substantial part.

Copyright is just about copying. It does not stop someone independently creating a similar work – or even an identical work (if two people somehow independently created identical works). A person is allowed to be influenced by a copyright work as long as they don’t copy a substantial part of it.

Exceptions to copyright

Lawmakers try to strike a balance between the needs of copyright owners and society through exceptions.

For example, national laws may allow limited copying for education, reviewing a work or reporting the news. Or a country’s laws may automatically allow specific forms of copying in return for payment (a “compulsory licence”), such as to make a cover version of a music track.

Some exceptions address technological developments, such as browsing content on the internet, backing up a computer program and recording a TV show to watch later. 

The US takes an unusual approach to exceptions. As well as specific exceptions, the US has a general, flexible exception known as “fair use”. Under fair use, US Courts sometimes allow new forms of copying without any changes to the laws. Examples include reproducing image thumbnails in search results and scanning books to make them searchable.

Copyright and AI

Artificial intelligence, especially “Generative AI”, has raised new scenarios for copyright, triggering debates over the legality of training on copyright works without permission and the legality of the resulting models and their outputs.

This is the subject matter of ongoing, high-stakes litigation in many countries and a policy issue for governments, including the US, UK and the EU.

Human Native’s mission is to take the friction out of licensing high-quality copyright content for AI training. We want to create a sustainable, fair alternative to legal disputes.