Have you infringed Copyright?

It has been a while since my last post. It is mostly because of the Copyright knowledge that I have learned from Intellectual Property Law this semester made me realized how many copyrights I have infringed previously =/


Two weeks ago I had an offer by the Tokyo publisher to publish one of my article in their English workbook. The workbook mainly used for the English learner in the language class. It was my great honour to receive such surprising offer but I have rejected twice because the work is not written by me entirely. I love to edit and combine various articles into one piece but this action has exposed to potential infringing copyright of others.


So, I am sure all of you have heard of copyright. But do you really know the exact meaning of copyright in our daily lives? Copyright protects the works of authors and artists to ensure their works are not unlawfully reproduced, distributed, performed, or acts that would deprive them of revenue and discourage further creative work. 


There are too many examples of copyright infringement. 

• The playing of Lady Gaga songs in the night market or Pasar Malam (without license) has infringe the copyright. 
• The lecture notes came mainly from wikipedia or other books-infringe (c). 
• I sing Jay Chou's latest song in a video clip and post it in YouTube also infringe (c). 
• The selling of LV, Gucci, Burberry bags in Petaling Street-Obvious act of infringement!! (Yet our "beloved" prime minister is proud of it by introducing tourism Malaysia zzz) 
• We used to photostat the text books in photostat shop-definitely infringe (c), I use the photos and some good articles in the web-I ALWAYS INFRINGE COPYRIGHT FTW!!

Sometimes I think Copyright is very troublesome. This will prevents many new creative works from other people! Also, in the case you want to cite sources of the information, but usually  there are more than thousands of same information appearing in the net until I don't know who is the real (c) owner =/


By the way there are some useful tips to avoid the (c) infringement obligations in writing a blog. The best safest method is using your own language, photos and everything by yourself! This you are the lawful (c) owner to prove the originality of your work. 


There are some defense available if you had infringed the (c). The fair dealings is a defense including the private study and non profit research of the information. reporting a current events such as Prince William wedding, criticism or review of latest iPhone 5, Parody and Acknowledgement. Citing an acknowledgement is necessary when you take the informations from others but it is not an absolute defense.


So have you infringed the (c)? Lets stop infringing and expand our full creativity today!