CopyrightX: Jamaica 2013
This module will teach you about the rights of a copyright holder and about the exceptions to and limitations on those rights.
Case study
Maria, Angela's aunt, is a collector of sheet music. Many of the documents in her collection are handwritten; some are unique. She has just decided to donate the entire collection to the university library. Angela meets with Nadia to discuss how the library might best make use of the collection. In particular, Angela asks Nadia to make digital copies of all of the compositions in Maria's collection and to make those copies available to the world on the library's servers.
Lesson
Economic Rights
Rights Relating to Reproduction and Distribution of a Work
The heart of copyright law is the right to make copies of a protected work. This is called the "right of reproduction." The copyright holder has the exclusive right to make or authorize such copies. Creating a copy without the authorization of the holder infringes upon the copyright, unless permitted by an exception to or limitation on the reproduction right. As we saw in Module 2: The International Framework, the right of reproduction is widely acknowledged by international agreements. As we will soon discuss, however, those same agreements also empower member countries to create exceptions and limitations to this (and other) rights. The copyright statutes of virtually all countries recognize the right of reproduction.