Small business owners have a lot on their plates. Inundated with fulfilling orders, managing staff, running payroll, and whatever else the business world decides to throw your way \u2013 likely the last thing on your mind is copyright law.<\/p>\n
Grab a photo from Google to throw on your website? Sure, why not? Copy and paste some information from another blog to your own? You don\u2019t have time to write any original content, so yeah, that sounds good.<\/p>\n
Not so fast.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Cutting corners is never a good idea. Violating copyright laws could land your company in a lot of trouble and a financial penalty you don\u2019t want to have to deal with.<\/p>\n Like many compliance regulations, copyright law is extensive and complex. But I\u2019ve answered seven common questions that cover the basics \u2013 from the copyright definition to copyright infringement and everything in between.<\/p>\n The copyright law protects the artistic expression of the author or creator of an original work. The law automatically gives the author the exclusive right to copy, sell, distribute, display or perform the work and protects him or her from copyright infringement. It does not protect underlying ideas or concepts, just their artistic expression by an author.<\/p>\n An \u201coriginal work\u201d means more than just written material in a book, play, poem or article. It also includes other forms of artistic expression such as photography, art, sculpture, architecture, music, films, sound recordings, as well as dramatic, dance, mime or other performances in recorded form. A note to IT folks: these written \u201coriginal works\u201d include computer code.<\/p>\n Sure, not everything in written or recorded form is regarded as an \u201coriginal work\u201d entitled to copyright protection. Common exceptions include:<\/p>\n Copyright infringement occurs when you copy, sell, distribute, display or perform a copyrighted work without the permission of the author or copyright holder. The law allows the copyright holder to collect actual damages or statutory damages that range from $750 to $30,000 per infringement, as the judge considers proper. If the infringement can be shown to be willful, the statutory damages may be increased to $150,000 per infringement.<\/p>\n Plagiarism is passing off someone else\u2019s work as your own. It is dishonest and a form of stealing or cheating. Interestingly, this failure to attribute the work to the true author or owner is not itself illegal under the copyright law. The copyright violation is in the copying, display or distribution of the work. For certain, plagiarism looks bad – really bad –\u00a0not only to a judge, but to the copyright owner who is more likely to come after you with a claim. Avoiding plagiarism is easy \u2013 that\u2019s what quotation marks are for! If you identify the material or phrase in question and cite the author or owner, it\u2019s not plagiarism.<\/p>\n No! The same rules apply as with any other form of publication or display. Most knowledgeable online publishers and bloggers include a copyright notice on their web page, usually at the bottom, ex., \u201c\u00a9 PrimePay, LLC.\u201d This is just a notice of copyright ownership. Since 1989, legal copyright ownership in the US has accrued automatically, whether there is a notice or not. As a result, you can\u2019t assume that you can copy something on the Internet just because it lacks a copyright notice.<\/p>\n There are three basic situations:<\/p>\n PrimePay can partner with you to offer support throughout the entire employee lifecycle. Learn more about how PrimePay can help you streamline Payroll & Human Resources processes.<\/p>\nCopyright definition: Who and what does the copyright law protect?\u00a0<\/h3>\n
What is an \u201coriginal work\u201d?\u00a0<\/h3>\n
Are there exceptions?\u00a0<\/h3>\n
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What is copyright infringement?\u00a0<\/h3>\n
What is plagiarism, and how does it differ?<\/h3>\n
Is it all right to copy material just because it\u2019s on the internet?\u00a0<\/h3>\n
When\u00a0can<\/em>\u00a0I legally copy something?\u00a0<\/h3>\n
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Looking for ways to make your business more efficient?<\/h3>\n