What Does a Copyright Lawyer Do?
A copyright is a protection against fraud and the use of an original work without the creator’s consent. This may seem like a simple concept, but with intellectual and creative copyright laws constantly changing, it can be a difficult legal concept to keep up with.
Copyright lawyers are attorneys who specialize in protecting their client’s rights as holder of the copyright. Their job is to study the cases of possible copyright infringement and decide how to proceed. The first question is, of course, “Is this really breaking a copyright law?” In some cases, this is an easy question to answer. If a website is distributing free songs without paying the musicians and recording companies, that’s breaking copyright. But what if a band releases a CD with their own cover of a song by a famous band? Are they required to pay the original artists for using the lyrics and tune? The answer in this case is, yes. By using the words and music of another artist, you are taking advantage of their creative property without any benefit to them.
An example that became a media sensation in recent years was the case of a German girl who published a bestselling novel at 17. Critics praised her and then just as quickly criticized her for plagiarism when it was discovered that a shocking amount of her book was lifted word-for-word from the work of other authors and bloggers. When confronted with the clear proof that her book was full of plagiarized material, the teen claimed simply that, "true originality doesn't exist anyway, only authenticity." Because she had arranged the passages into a new story and a new order than they had previously been published in, she was not found guilty of copyright infringement.
It’s cases like these that make copyright lawyers all the more important in our digital age. Hiring a lawyer who specializes in copyrights can help save the integrity of your work from being abused by others and it can get you the money that you deserve from others profiting from your ideas.
To learn More About Baker & Rannells, PA Copyright Law.
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