What is copyright?
The "Intellectual Property Office" which is an operating name of the Patent Office in the UK, explains that copyright protects any written, theatrical, musical or artistic work, as well as sound recordings, book layouts, films and broadcasts. Copyright automatically exists as soon as a creative work is available in a tangible form. This can be a book, an ebook, a CD, a DVD or another medium. Therefore, once you have written your song, your story, your drama, or created your painting or sculpture, then you are automatically the copyright owner.
Why respect someone's copyright?
As copyright is owned by the originator, you should not copy, or reproduce in any way a copyright protected work without permission of the owner. Even if you reproduce the work on another medium, like copying a CD onto an audio tape or an iPod, then still the copyright belongs to the creator of the work.
For this reason the existence of copyright is a great support for any artist, musician, designer, photographer, architect, or sculptor, because their livelihood often depends on royalties gained from the sales of their artistic works.
Isn't creativity universal and therefore not belonging to the artist?
Although creativity is a very universal quality of Natural Law, it is the individual expression of feelings, emotions, or any experience, which turns universal law into an individual piece of art. And it is this individual expression of the creator of the work which enlivens this particular feeling, mood, or emotion in us. So, therefore we can only be thankful to any artist to give us the opportunity to enter into his world of creativity, harmony and bliss. Looking at copyright from this point of consideration, would you like to make an illegal copy of his or her work?
Next: Why register copyright