1. What is copyright?
Copyrighting something is claiming the creation/object as yours. This means that legally no one can edit or repost the copyrighted material.
2. What are the three 'moral rights' ?
The right of attribution - the creator of work has the right to be identified as such
Creators of things can be seen as the creators.
The right of integrity - the work may not be altered or changed without consent
People cannot alter original work without the creators' consent
False attribution - a work cannot be attributed to a creator falsely
You cannot claim somebody made something wen they did not.
3.How might copyright affect you and your work?
Because we keep blogs and use images, which could then be claimed as copyright, thus we should use copyright free material. However there is a new copyright option called CreativeCommons which was designed to allow people to use others work without having to contact lawyers and go through legal puzzles.
SOPA and PIPA are American bills to prevent online piracy, ACTA is an international bill to also prevent such things. However ACTA does more things, if it passes it ISPs (Internet service providers) will be held responsible for what its users do. Thus turning them into private copyright police. This would also limit and cut down on the number of accessible sites and such items from certain countries. Although they are American bills, because most of the large, popular and well known sites are hosted and created in America, it will greatly affect the rest of the world.
Although ACTA has existed for 2 years now, it has only just come into the public's eyes and causing worry.
Some people support these bills because, these people might be musicians who are worried about piracy.
Although there are those that support it, many of the users of the internet believe the bills should not be passed as it would have too much of an affect on every day use of the net.
Although the bills are made to prevent copyright infringement, creators, artists and publishers can post items under the Creative Commons section. Which can allow free use of that piece. For example, you can allow free for non commercial or free use as long as the person using it then posts it under free use themselves. Websites such as DeviantArt (http://www.deviantart.com/) support this and offer this an option when you upload a submission. YouTube has also begun advertising the Creative Commons options for videos.
In an example of Creative Commons, a band might upload a piece of music, then allow others to use it, so long as it is non commercial. People do this, a well known band for this is Approaching Nirvana, who release songs which are free to use and more importantly copyright free.
In different countries and regions there are different copyright trade groups which represent different media's work. For example the RIAA is responsible for the recording industry in the USA, and the MPAA is responsible for the film industry in the USA. Because there are so many different companies that are reliable for copyright of material, Creative Commons was needed to avoid having to contact so many people just to use a piece of media when the creator intended it to be free use. Creative Commons removes the needs for contacting so many people in short, and makes it publicly visible that you can or cannot use a certain piece of media.
