2. •What is Copyright?
• Copyright is a federal law which provides protection for any
original work that you create.
• It also allows for protection of someone else’s work so that you
can’t use it without their permission.
3. •I am confused what does all of this
mean?
• For example, if you write a song, a poem, draw a picture or
anything like that, the U.S. copyright law protects you. This
means that no one else can take it and say that it is theirs.
• It also means, that the same is true for someone else. If you
hear your friend singing a tune and then you go and write a
song and make thousands of dollars from it, based on the song
your friend was singing, you are in violation of the copyright
law. Why? Because, the song belonged to your friend and not
you.
4. But what if I want someone else to use
something that I wrote?
• Then you can sign a release and allow a person to use your
work. Only the owner of a product can allow someone one to
use it and the owner can determine under what circumstances
the work may be used.
• You should always credit the work of others when you use
something that is not originally yours.
5. •Let’s Review
• I want to check my
knowledge for understanding
on what things I can
copyright
• Go to the next slide for a
brief chart on items that can
be copyrighted.
6. •What can be copyrighted?
Here is a table that shows some
items that can be copyrighted. Items Protected By Yes No
Copyright
.
A poem I wrote
A picture I drew
A picture I saw on
TV that I thought
was cute.
A Disney character
A line from a
movie that I saw.
A song that I
wrote
