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How copyright protects your work

6 July 2023

Discover the importance of copyright protection for your creative works, including literary, artistic, musical, and non-literary written works, sound recordings, films, broadcasts, and published editions, and learn about the rights it provides in preventing unauthorised copying, distribution, public performance, adaptations, and internet usage without your permission.

Copyright protects your work and stops others from using it without your permission.

You get copyright protection automatically – you don’t have to apply or pay a fee. There isn’t a register of copyright works in the UK.

You automatically get copyright protection when you create:

  • original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic work, including illustration and photography
  • original non-literary written work, such as software, web content and databases
  • sound and music recordings
  • film and television recordings
  • broadcasts
  • the layout of published editions of written, dramatic and musical works

You can mark your work with the copyright symbol (©), your name and the year of creation. Whether you mark the work or not doesn’t affect the level of protection you have.

Copyright prevents people from:

  • copying your work
  • distributing copies of it, whether free of charge or for sale
  • renting or lending copies of your work
  • performing, showing or playing your work in public
  • making an adaptation of your work
  • putting it on the internet
Source: Other Thu, 06 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0100

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