What is Copyright?

Author’s choice

The basic premise of copyright law is that the author has the right to decide how their work will be used. In most cases, the author is the person who creates a work. (In this knowledge base, the term “author” and “creator” are used interchangeably.) Generally the author is free to choose whether they retain, commercialise or authorise others to exercise one or more of their copyright rights.

A set of rights

Copyright is a form of intellectual property right. It provides authors with a set of exclusive property rights in a wide range of works, including written, artistic, musical and audio-visual creations. Copyright gives the person who creates an original work exclusive rights to copy, publish, publically perform, transmit and adapt their material. The set of rights is not absolute. In some cases copyright also provides for others to use copyright in certain ways without having to get the copyright holder’s permission.