What is Copyright?
Copyright is concerned with protecting literary, artistic or scientific work of the human intellect. These include books, wallpapers, pamphlets, catalogues, maps, guides and other writings, music, works of the fine arts such as paintings and sculptures, lectures, addresses, and works of like nature, Dramatic, dramatic musical works, Chronographic works, dumb show, Musical composition, Architecture, sculpture, drawings, engravings, lithographic, phonographic works, Translations, adaptations and technology based works such as computer programs and electronic databases.
Copyright is based on the concepts of originality and reproduction of the work in any material form. Therefore the main criterion for the protection of a work under copyright laws is that it should beoriginal (Not copied). Accordingly copyright laws confers the exclusive right to the owner of the “original” literary, artistic or scientific work to use or authorize others to use it for its reproduction, public performance, translation and adaptation. It is to be noted that copyright protects a work that is the expression of thought based on some idea, and not for the idea as such. For example if I have the idea of painting “sunset over the sea”, anyone else can use the same idea, which is not protected. But when I actually produce my painting of “sunset over the sea” the painting itself is expression, and that is protected.
Copyright provides a bundle of rights. The most typical are the following: the right to copy or otherwise reproduce any kind of work; the right to distribute copies to the public; the right to rent copies of at least certain categories of works (such as computer programs and audiovisual works); the right to make sound recordings of the performances of literary and musical works; the right to perform in public, particularly musical, dramatic or audiovisual works; the right to communicate to the public by cable or otherwise the performances of such works and, particularly, to broadcast, by radio, television or other wireless means, any kind of work; the right to translate literary works; the right to rent, particularly, audiovisual works, works embodied in phonograms and computer programs; the right to adapt any kind of work and particularly the right to make audiovisual works thereof.
Copyright is a protection that covers published and unpublished literary, scientific and artistic works, musical work, cinematographic films, software etc. Whatever be the form of expression, such works should be fixed in a tangible or material form. This means that if you can see it, hear it and/or touch it - it may be protected.
Originality:
Originality in relation to a work means that it is the author’s own creation and is not copied totally or essentially from another work. Originality is required by copyright law for the composition of the contents as well as the form of their expression , but not in relation to mere ideas, information or methods embodied in the work. Originality is not to be confused with novelty: the pre-existence of a similar work unknown to the author does not affect the originality of an independent creation. In the case of a derivative work, originality resides in the individual method of adaptation of the pre-existing work as referred to, among others, in Article 9 of the Mexican Law.
The requirement of originality as a condition of copyright protection is expressed in many national copyright laws by qualifying protectible works as “original”. This sense of the attribute “original” should not be confused with the meaning of the term when used to oppose original works as pre-existing works to derivative works.
LITERARY, ARTISTIC, MUSICAL AND SCIETIFIC WORKS
Strictly speaking, literary work is wr