In 1995, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) paid a tribute to books and authors, and April 23 was chosen as World Book Day.
On this date in 1616, Miguel Cervantes and William Shakespeare died.
Books were first made in 1923 by booksellers in Spain. It also saw the birth of several prominent authors.
Copyright provides rights to authors for their creative works, such as novels, articles, poems, plays, computer programs, films, music and paintings.
Copyright protects expression of ideas. Copyright does not protect ideas or facts.
Expression of ideas refers to how facts are relayed in words, music, graphic or other element.
Copyright provides acknowledgement to authors for their creative works.
Authors ought to be recognised with incentives to boost literary activity.
Copyright plays a dominant role in developed countries such as the United States.
Copyright is important so that publishers can reinvest profits in developing new creative works.
In Malaysia, copyright is obtained automatically when a work is published.
Examples of copyright notice are Copyright 2019 Dennis Tan and Copyright 2019 Boon IP. The former shows a copyright notice asserted by an author while the latter is by a publisher.
In an ideal world, people respect each other’s copyright works. In reality, people may copy others’ work intentionally or unintentionally, and not admit to such action.
In such a situation, it would be difficult to prove authorship if the act of copying is denied.
Digital works should be created on genuine software. File metadata of works should be filled. Original, editable, uncompressed file should be archived.
Malaysia provides voluntary notification for copyright protection.
An author is provided with economic and moral rights. Economic rights refer to right to copy, commercialise, adapt and others.
Moral rights refer to right to claim authorship and right to prevent degradation of work.
Moral rights are important to authors, especially journalists, so that the authors of the work can be acknowledged.
Original creative works are protected throughout the lifetime of an author, plus 50 years after his or her death.
When the copyright term expires, the creative works will fall into public domain.
DENNIS TAN
Chief IP officer, Kuala Lumpur