The law that makes it illegal to copy or reproduce a work is called fittingly “Copyright”.

The ideology behind copyright is sound, however, like other ideologies and theories it is inherently flawed. People will find ways to misuse the law for a profit. When someone creates something they are “entitled“ to and have “rights“ to the benefits of that creation whether it be an invention, or and “original work“ of art.

Art can be a song, poem, story, or one of many forms of visual art. The rights that come with the creation of a work are, and should be, automatic and natural. No one besides the creator of the work should be allowed to profit from or use the work in any way without “authorization“ from the works author.

However this idea flies in the face of the creation process, and poses a question. Why create the work in the first place? If no one, besides the original author has any rights to the work, and no one can publish the work without permission, why create it?

Culture.

Copyright law protects the author of the work and gives the creator the authority to sell the work for a profit without concern of theft of the work. The author can use the work as long as they own “all rights”. What I mean by this is that the author has the option of transferring “all rights“ to whomever he or she chooses. The wonderful part about this area of law is that not only can the creator profit from the work itself, the rights to the work is fully transferable.

The author can transfer all rights or partial rights or set just about any limitations of usage they deem fit. This also poses another question.

How do you transfer rights and why?

Transferring rights to a work can get complicated and there are many ways to do it. The 3 most common are the temporary transfer, or what copyright law calls “licensing”. Here are the 3 I am referring to in order of commonality.

· Commercial