In many countries, the governments tried to modify copyright law to meet international standards. However, there are still some differences, according to the law culture each country. In some countries, someone violating copyright law will be sued only to the civil law courts but other countries they can also be charged by criminal courts.
Copyright was originally made in the 18th century for books. Before printing presses were made, books could only be copied by hand, which would take time. But when printing presses were made, books could be copied faster and easier. Because of this, some books were copied by people who did not own the book themselves. So lawmakers gave only owners the right to copy. National laws were somewhat standardized by international treaties.
Because technology got better over time, copyright began to cover other types of media such as pictures, sound, and film. Commonly, copyright violation warning would be shown at the beginning of the media to warn audiences against violating copyright law.
In most countries, authors automatically own the copyright to any work they make or create, as long as they do not give the copyright to someone else.
In most countries, there is no need to register the copyright, and some countries do not even have procedures to register copyrights. But, where registration is available, many authors register anyway, especially for works that are sold for money. That is because registration helps to prove that the copyright of a work belongs to a certain author.
If an author gets paid to make a work for someone else, the person who pays for making the work (for example, the author's employer) will often get to own the copyright instead of the author themselves. For example, if a person working for a company, Microsoft creates a new computer software program at work, the Microsoft company would own the copyright. It is very common that the company will instead register the copyright to avoid their employees from claiming their works.
Copyright laws usually protect owners of copyright beyond their lifetime. In some countries, such as Canada and New Zealand, works are protected for 50 years after the last living author dies. In other countries, like the United States and the European Union, the protection lasts for 70 years after death. When the period of copyright protection has ended, the written document, musical composition, book, picture, or other creative work is in the public domain. This means that no one owns the copyright and everyone is free to copy, use and change them without having to ask for permission or pay the owner.
There is an exception to the rules of copyright, called fair use. This means that people can copy a very small amount of a work to use in reviews or in research reports.
An example of fair use is when newspaper writers quote several sentences from a copyright-protected document to tell the story. Another example of "fair use" is when a university professor quotes several sentences from a copyright-protected book in a review of the book, or in a research report.
Different countries have different copyright laws. Most of the differences are about:
Because of these differences, a certain piece of work may be under copyright in one country, and in the public domain in another.
Some people argue that copyright laws make it easier for people to make new works and think of new ideas. After all, if authors get to make money for the time, effort and money they put in, then they will want to make more works later, and make more money.
But others believe that copyright laws make it harder to be creative. Without copyright, other people could reuse existing work, and copyright law often stops that.
If an author wants to sell a work, it's often easiest to give the copyright to a publisher. The publisher will do all the selling, and in return for that service, will keep part of the money. But the publisher has many different things to sell, and they may not want to sell the work the author made. Authors often find it very hard to find a publisher willing to sell their work.
But without a publisher, it can be even harder for an author to sell his or her work. In many markets, a few big publishers own the copyrights to almost everything available, and stores will not want to sell works published by small authors themselves. Many people say copyright law helps big publishers stay in control, and keeps smaller authors out of the market. (tragedy of the anticommons).
As a solution to these problems, groups of authors have come up with the idea of open content. With open content, authors give everyone permission to copy, change and give away or sell their works, as long as they follow certain rules. These rules are explained in an open content license. Some possible open content rules are:
The term for Open Content is sometimes called Copyleft.
Republic of China
The Republic of China (), also known as Taiwan, is a island country in East Asia. The People's Republic of China (PRC) is located to the northwest; Japan is to the northeast; the Philippines is to the south. The Chinese Nationalists lost the Chinese Civil War to the Communists in 1949 and moved the government of the Republic of China from Nanjing to Taipei. It still claims the ownership of all of China including Mainland China.
The territory the Republic of China (ROC) controls is known by most people as the island of Taiwan. Most places on Taiwan Island are called "Taiwan Province" by the government of the Republic of China for official business, except the two largest cities of Taipei and Kaohsiung. West of Taiwan Island, there are three small groups of islands that also belong to ROC. They are:
The ROC used to govern Mainland China too. Now Mainland China is governed by the Communist People's Republic of China; see History and Political problems of China. However, ROC still declares Mainland China as its territory officially. The Republic of China also used to govern Mongolia.
There are administrative divisions in different levels and types.
157 Districts (區 qū ㄑㄩ), 17 Country-controlled cities (縣轄市 xiànxiáshì ㄒㄧㄢˋㄒㄧㄚˊㄕˋ), 41 Urban Townships (鎮 zhèn ㄓㄣˋ), and 153 Rural Townships (鄉 xiāng ㄒㄧㄤ) stand the 3rd level. Districts stand under either Special municipalities or Provincial cities; Country-controlled cities, Urban Townships, and Rural Townships stand under Counties.
Villages (里 lǐ ㄌㄧˇ or 村 cūn ㄘㄨㄣ) stand the 4th level, and Neighborhoods (鄰 lín ㄌㄧㄣˊ) stand the 5th level.
The Nationalists, led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen, got rid of the Qing Dynasty ruled by the Manchus, then they established the ROC and ended Imperial Dynastic Rule in late-1911. The ROC at that time had Mainland China and all of what is now called Mongolia.
After the Japanese were defeated by the Allies during World War II, Taiwan was controlled by the ROC.
In 1949, the Chinese Communists fought a war against the Nationalists and won. They established the People's Republic of China. The Nationalists left mainland China and arrived in Taiwan.
After the ROC created a base on Taiwan, it hoped one day to capture the Mainland. But Chinese Communists grew stronger, so the Nationalists never did go back. The Communists say they replaced the ROC as the only government of China and also calls Taiwan their own.
There are those people in Taiwan who want to never be a part of the People's Republic of China. They believe in complete Taiwan independence and want to rename the ROC (Taiwan) to "Republic of Taiwan" so Taiwan can no longer have any ancestral connection to China or Chinese culture. Some other people wish to unite with the People's Republic of China; they want Chinese reunification. Some still want to attack the PRC and reunify China under the Republic of China. Most others want the "status quo", which means keeping everything the way it is now.