a valid copyright. Although many people are unaware, for decades the song could not be

used commercially without incurring royalties to Warner/Chappell music group. They claimed

they owned the rights, and collected an estimated 2 million dollars a year off of it. But, how

was something so simple and universal even considered to be owned by a single company?

How exactly does copyright work?

Well, copyright is protection for tangible expressions of an idea. It is intended to

give the creator of something original the ability to use and make money from it without

others being able to use it. But copyright law isn’t a blanket ban. there are a number

of limitations that do allow for widespread use.

First and foremost, it is important to note a distinction between copyright and trademark.

You might see those frequently represented by the symbols C and TM. Although they generally

protect the derivatives of an idea, also called “intellectual property,” each applies

to different types of property. Copyright tends to cover literary and artistic work,

for example movies and books. Trademark is more often used to protect a company’s brand,

and would include things like logos and names. Trademark is the reason you don’t see thousands

of knock-off McDonalds restaurants, while Copyright is the reason you can’t just print

and sell the Lord of the Rings books, or download pirated movies.

But what you are and aren’t allowed to do in regards to intellectual property is entirely

based on which country you’re in, and how strict their copyright laws are. Now, most

of the world adheres to the Berne Convention, which was the basis for most modern copyright

law. Its greatest contribution was to establish the concept that the creator of a piece of

work has automatic copyright from the moment of its creation in a fixed, tangible form.

Still, there are small differences between countries in how that law is implemented and

enforced.

Looking at US copyright law, there are specific limitations on how long an idea can be controlled

by a single person. This is usually pegged to expire 50 to 100 years after the death

of the creator, after which time it falls into public domain. When something is in public

domain, anybody can use and reproduce it. There are also instances where small portions

of copyrighted works can be used without violating copyright. This is referred to as “fair

use” and is usually for educational purposes, parody, criticism, research, and so on. One

of the biggest reasons for this is to prevent censorship by saying that any mention of an

existing work would violate its copyright.

Copyright law is complicated and dense, and it doesn’t even apply in a number of countries

which haven’t signed any international copyright treaties. But in the rest of the world, the

ability to control and profit off of your ideas is an important aspect of the economy

and intellectual property.

There’s more to copyright law than meets the eye — and the same goes for the First

Amendment. Learn more about how complicated freedom of speech and religion are in this

video. Thanks for watching! Make sure to like and subscribe to the channel so you don’t

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