Browse Copyrights Articles

Have you ever thought about using part of a picture or story in order to create something new and different? If so, you may be in trouble with the original author and even the courts. Why? Because, your "new" project may be considered a derivative work. more...

What if you decided to rewrite F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel The Great Gatsby? Good luck with that. But wait: your protagonist is not Nick Carraway, but instead is Jordan Baker—long-time friend of Daisy Buchanan. Jordan, like Nick, goes to Gatsby’s fabulous garden parties on West Egg, drinks and rubs expensive elbows. Jordan is also a professional golfer, and the original novel hints that she may have some skeletons in her closet. So you seek to address Gatsby from a new perspective—one hinted at in the original, but one wholly unexplored, and one that you think will beget a new, incisive and surprising result. So what’ve you got—groundbreaking literary copy or copyright liability? more...

Painter Darby Bannard once said that “Originality is way overrated. To make, you need to take. All great artists do.” Franklin P. Jones states that “Originality is the art of concealing your source.” And no less than Ernest Hemingway echoed this when he wrote that all modern literature comes from Huckleberry Finn.  So how much new art is truly original, and when does it matter? more...

Ever wonder what you can copyright? Or whether you really need to copyright your work to protect it? Copyright can be confusing, so we break it down and give you the basics you need to know. more...