A Certain Shift in the Requirements for Originality of Author Works and Copyrights - Coursework Example

?Running head: Works Works Works A person who gives existence to a written piece is called an Whatever the author writes totally depends upon his/her creativity and imagination. In the past, many different authors have come up with different styles of writing and those literary pieces are categorized accordingly. A few examples of different types of author works include mystery, women’s fiction, science fiction, thriller, horror, romance, western, young adult etc. However, ‘author works’ does not always imply a written work. The maker of a video can also be called an author. Things that require little or no effort from the human being itself may not be classified as an ‘author work’. For example, if a camera is placed in the lobby of an airport and it records a video of all the passengers, it cannot be called an author work because it required little or no effort from the maker itself. The process was entirely mechanical. So there has to be a certain threshold for originality for the subject of copyrights to come into play. The Government allows the authors a right to copy or distribute their written or produced pieces within a certain amount of time. This is called copyright. Different countries have different laws regarding copyright issues of different author works. Authorship on research papers can be judged by the amount of research one has done. A software engineer can also be called the author of software. The law towards protection of software copyrights is statutory. This is important because these days software is being marketed through websites, personal contacts, blogs and other channels without a license. In the United Kingdom, the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 UK places due importance on originality (Derclaye 2009). Originality is considered to be the pre-requisite factor while granting a copyright. It is required that literary, artistic, dramatic, and musical works should be original in order to qualify for copyright protection. Likewise, In Spain Article 1 of the Real Decreto Legislativo 1/1996, de 12 de abril, which is Spain's main copyright law states that "The intellectual property of a literary, artistic or scientific work is entitled to its author for the sole fact of its creation." An original work is considered to be the one that expresses the personality of its author. In the UAE, Federal Law No.7 of 2002 Pertains to Copyrights and Neighbouring Rights and has no such requirement as originality (Karake-Shalhoub and Qasimi 2006). Nevertheless work should have an element of innovation and creativity. All scientific, literary, musical or artistic work, cinematograph films, photographs, sound recordings, broadcasts must be copyrighted. Musical, scientific and literary works are judged only on their originality and not on the quality. Stories of fiction, poetry, plays, stage dramas, movies, news scripts, textbooks, agreements, historical documents, biographies, essays and articles, encyclopaedias and dictionaries, letters, reports and memoranda, lectures, addresses and sermons all come under the banner of ‘literary works’. However, it does not include speeches and addresses delivered in the House of Representatives and Courts. In India the “Sweat of the Brow Doctrine” is followed as it is a commonwealth country1. In Canada more importance is given to skill rather than labour. The Copyright Act (R.S. 1985, c. C-42) provides that: The Supreme Court of Canada asserted that the standard of originality should be set at the intermediate level of skill and judgment. McLachlin C J explained (Scassa and Deturbide 2004): “For a work to be 'original' within the meaning of the Copyright Act, it must be more than a mere copy of another work. At the same time, it need not be creative, in the sense of being novel or unique. What is required to attract copyright protection in the expression of an idea is an exercise of skill and judgment. By skill, I mean the use of one's knowledge, developed aptitude or practised ability in producing the work. By judgment, I mean the use of one's capacity for discernment or ability to form an opinion or evaluation by comparing different possible options in producing the work. This exercise of skill and judgment will necessarily involve intellectual effort. The exercise of skill and judgment required to produce the work must not be so trivial that it could be characterized as a purely mechanical exercise. For example, any skill and judgment that might be involved in simply changing the font of a work to produce 'another' work would be too trivial to merit copyright protection as an 'original' work” In the United States of America, there has been a certain shift in the requirements for originality of author works and copyrights. The shift started when The Supreme Court rejected to give a copyright claim for a telephone directory as it was thought that the telephone directory is just a collection numbers and does not require a creative or intellectual effort from the part of the maker (Vaidhyanathan 2003). Such was the case in Australia also. So in the United States, the work must be original and it should have an identifiable author or authors. The work should also contain a subject matter. And copyright should be granted based on expression, not just the idea. In France, the Art. L. 112-1 of the French 'Code de la Propriete Intellectuelle', the Code protects all works of spirit, intellectual creations (Bouche 2011). Since France is known for the French art and architecture, the French Law places a great emphasis on the originality of works of arts, photography being the prime art. Regarding the originality of routine photographs, which simply reproduce objects e.g. photographs contained in a shopping catalogue, the French Court has dictated that the photographer has to demonstrate that he has played an important role during the preparatory stage and thus he is the intellectual creator of those photographs. From the different requirements for originality discussed above. It can be seen that various countries across the Globe give due importance to originality of thought and expression. Plagiarism is forbidden; however, in some cases attribution is acceptable. But generally a copyright is issued only to those people who claim a right in the intellectual production and development of a work. Bibliography Bouche, Nicolas. Intellectual Property Law in France. Kluwer Law International, 2011. Derclaye, Estelle. Research handbook on the future of EU copyright. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009. Karake-Shalhoub, Zeinab, and Lubna Al Qasimi. The diffusion of e-commerce in developing economies: a resource-based approach. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006. Scassa, Teresa, and Michael Eugene Deturbide. Electronic Commerce and Internet Law in Canada. CCH Canadian Limited, 2004. Vaidhyanathan, Siva. Copyrights and copywrongs: the rise of intellectual property and how it threatens creativity. NYU Press, 2003. Read More