Copyright Infringement

Copyright infringement is the violation of copyright law through the illegal use of protected material. This includes both the reproduction of that material and the creation of derivative works from it. In the case of media (movies, music, books, software, et cetera), reproduction is also called piracy—a term that is sometimes contested, but has in fact been used this way with reference to books and documents since at least the beginning of the 17th century, longer than copyright law itself has existed. One of the controversies surrounding copyright has always been that infringement is not exactly theft; while it may impact the copyright owner's profits (as in bootleg DVDs), the law does not require that it do so. And while it may bring to the infringer profits reaped from someone else's property, in the case of derivative works the labor and intellectual contribution of the infringer is still involved—and, again, profit is not necessary to constitute an infringement. Although copyrights can be filed, material is copyrighted regardless of whether a filing was made; the filing is simply helpful in the event of a court case, to provide proof of the validity of the rights-owner's claim.

Enforcing a copyright claim begins with a cease and desist letter, which in many cases is sufficient, because of the fear of legal reprisals or the infringer's previous misunderstanding of the relevant law. If this proves insufficient, the rights-holder can then file a lawsuit, and will often seek a preliminary injunction, which prevents the infringer from continuing the alleged infringement until the trial has completed. This will nearly always be done in cases that the plaintiff expects to be settled out of court, because of the additional hassle for the defendant. If the trial is resolved in the plaintiff's favor, he is entitled to a permanent injunction against the defendant's further infringement, and/or monetary damages, depending on the circumstances of the infringement.

The Doctrine of Fair Use

The doctrine of fair use is a concept in American copyright law that permits certain uses of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the copyright owner, even over the owner's objections. Similar doctrines obtain in the copyright laws of other countries.

There are four factors used to determine if fair use applies, which the Copyright Act of 1976 identifies as, first of all, the purpose or character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or for nonprofit educational purposes. This factor considers, for instance, whether the use of the copyrighted material is merely derivative (not protected under fair use) or transformative (protected). Satire and parody are protected instances of fair use, in theory: in practice it's important to remember that the copyrighted material must be necessary to the parody. Inserting scenes from other movies into your own movie is more likely to be derivative than transformative—and even if the court rules in favor of transformativeness, the legal costs to see that decision through are prohibitive.

Not every educational use is fair use, which stands to reason when one considers the amount of educational material that is copyrighted; if it were permissible to ignore copyright simply because one's use is educational and nonprofit, schools would Xerox their textbooks rather than purchase multiple copies of them, which in turn would lead to textbook publishing being too unprofitable for the industry to persist, a classic (or textbook) example of the process by which copyright infringement can have consequences beyond the impact on a single rights-holder.

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