Copyright

I was enjoying some YouTube videos last night and suddenly realised that I was being a little (lot) hypercritical. I was enjoying some music videos and then thought that I was in fact, supporting copyright violation. These were copies of music videos etc and it is doubtful that they were published with the artist's consent.

The digital age means that now it is easy for people to copy and pinch ideas - rip off designs etc and call them their own, reproduce designs and distribute them etc. Which is patently wrong.

But on the other hand - sometime people misuse copyright in another way. The internet is packed with examples of, for instance, scans of old designs which have then been 'copyrighted' by the person who did the scan. How can this work? If the design is old enough to be in the public domain then how can someone simply scan it and then copyright it? Often people make the mistake of thinking that just because the copy of a pattern or design they have is old enough to be out of copyright makes it automatically ok to republish - but forgetting that it was subsequently republished and therefore, perhaps, still in copyright.

Creative Commons is a great way to license designs, patterns and other creative work. This is a licensing system that allows you to keep the copyright of your work - but share it with other people with certain restrictions. This has been specifically designed for creative people. The way that it works is described on the Creative Commons website as follows:-

"Offering your work under a Creative Commons license does not mean giving up your copyright. It means offering some of your rights to any member of the public but only on certain conditions."

More information can be seen about the types of licenses offered - and some examples of how they are used can be seen here.