How to Avoid Copyright Infringements
Copyright infringement includes using copyrighted materials without permission or legal authorization, According to U.S. Copyright Laws and the Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1998. This includes music, movies, videos and publications. With the age of technology, piracy and what is now called camming are a growing problem in the U.S. Piracy is the reproduction, selling and distribution of copyrighted materials. Piracy involves making CD or DVD copies of music and movies. Camming, on the other hand, is the act of recording movies in a theater with intent of making copies, selling and distributing them.
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Instructions
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Obtain permission from an artist before using his music. Even television commercial producers are required by federal law to obtain permission or license to use songs in their commercials. They are also required by law to properly credit the artist every time they use the song. That is why during these commercials a listing for the artist and the song title are shown. Any commercial use of music requires permission and payment to the artist who created the song. Otherwise use is considered copyright infringement and you can be sued or face criminal charges.
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Download music, movies, videos, etc. only after legally purchasing them. Rhapsody and iTunes are legally licensed companies that sell music files. Companies that offer free music file downloads are not legally licensed companies. They are pirating this music. If you download music files from those websites and burn CDs you can face the same criminal charges they will. You are legally allowed to listen to music files on websites such as Rhapsody. Listening to the music is not the same as downloading a file to be stored on your computer. Purchasing or viewing pirated movies and video is also criminal. Regardless of the method used to obtain the copy, you can face copyright infringement and theft charges. The FBI warning you see at the beginning of all DVDs is there for a reason and it should be taken seriously. Services such as Netflix for example are legal. You are renting temporary files that will expire or DVDs from a service that is licensed.
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Provide proper credit to sources when you use information obtained from books, periodicals or websites. This is relevant to, but not limited to, writing term papers or articles (print and online). If you are a college student submitting a term paper you must credit all sources used. If not you are guilty of plagiarism. If you use direct quotes you must document within the paper who made the statement and from where the statement was used. This is also copyright infringement. The same is true of all writers in general. College students found guilty of this crime will be expelled from their university. If they face criminal charges or not is determined by the university and applicable laws in their state. However, a professional writer who is found guilty of this crime can face criminal charges. These writers will lose their jobs and may have a lawsuit filed against them by the original author.
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Ask your librarian to make copies for you when conducting research at the library. The Fair Use Act allows librarians to legally make copies of periodicals, books, etc. for educational purposes. You may have noticed when librarians make these copies they will write at the bottom the copyright information.
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Comments
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jimmaraj
Dec 13, 2010
What about when music or movie excerpts are used for a presentation with due credits and references ? Does this constitute piracy ?
