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Child Labor

Child labor

Child labour or labourity is the term for the employment of children. In some countries, it is considered inappropriate or exploitative if a child below a certain age works, except for some household chores and of course school work. An employer is often not allowed to hire a child below a certain age. This minimum age depends on the country. Other forms of work include helping in the parents' business or having one's own small "business", like cleaning car windows, shining shoes, selling small items such as cigarettes, etc. Some children work as a guide for tourists, sometimes combined with working for owners of shops and restaurants, bringing tourists to these businesses. Also there is military use of children, child prostitution and illegal drug trade, illegal trade involving copyright violations (CDs, CD-ROMs, etc.) and there are child actors and child singers. child singer The voluntarism of such work may vary greatly, but even if a child says he or she wants to work (e.g. because the earnings are attractive or if the child hates school) it may still be an undesirable situation for the child in the long run. Some youth rights groups, however, feel that prohibiting work below a certain age violates human rights as well. The use of children as laborers is now considered by wealthy countries as a human rights violation, and outlawed, while poorer countries may allow it, as families often rely on the labors of their children for survival and sometimes it is the only source of income. This type of work is often hidden away because it is not in employment but in subsistence agriculture, in the household or in the urban informal sector. There is no evidence that this work would be less physically or mentally exhausting than employment, particularly because it is unpaid. A related problem is that children are often more preoccupied with the long-term survival and well-being of their families than with their own direct, short term interests. Child labor prohibition has to address the dual challenge of providing children with both short-term income and long-term prospects for a sustainable future. International concern has recently been raised in connection to an implied morality complicity of the buying public with child exploitation, through the purchase of products assembled or otherwise manufactured with child labor. However, some express concerns that boycotting products manufactured through child labor may force these children to turn to more dangerous professions due to necessity, such as prostitution or agriculture. For example, a UNICEF study found that that 5,000 to 7,000 Nepalese children turned to prostitution after the U.S. banned that country's carpet exports in the 1990s. Also, after the Child Labor Deterrence Act was introduced in the US an estimated 50,000 children were dismissed from their garment industry jobs in Bangladesh, leaving many to resort to jobs such as "stone-crushing, street hustling, and prostitution," --"all of them more hazardous and exploitative than garment production" according to a UNICEF study. [http://www.unicef.org/sowc97/] Individuals, corporations, nations, and other entities can often be active in a deliberate, systematic, use of children for their labor, while others will ignore such abuse. Bangladesh In the west, during the Industrial Revolution, use of child labour was commonplace, often in factories. In England and Scotland in 1788, about two-thirds of person working in the new water-powered textile factories were children ([http://www.galbithink.org/child.htm]). Child factory workers who were best able to cope with factory work become adult factory workers, and the composition of the factory labor force shifted toward adults before significant legislative intervention. Subsequently a series of Factory Acts were passed to gradually restrict the hours that children were allowed to work, and to improve safety. The United States also has extensive child labor laws. In the 1990s every country in the world, except for Somalia and the United States, became a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, or CRC. The CRC provides the strongest, most consistent international legal language prohibiting illegal child labor.

External links

- [http://www.ericdigests.org/2003-5/rights.htm Teaching about Child Labor and International Human Rights]
- [http://www.ericdigests.org/1997-4/labor.htm Child Labor in Agriculture]
- [http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabor/ History Place] Photographs from 1908-1912
- [http://samvak.tripod.com/childlabor.html Ethical and economic considerations in child labor]
- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4070746.stm Lightening the load of child miners - BBC]
- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3795503.stm Child labour challenge toughens - BBC]
- [http://www.cato.org/dailys/10-08-02.html Child Labor or Prostitution?]
- [http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:_AFraRNnwLMJ:www.fraserinstitute.ca/admin/books/chapterfiles/Mar05ffchildlab.pdf Ending Child Labour — Bans Aren’t the Solution]
- [http://lenbernstein.com/Pages/RiisArticle.html What Do The World and People Deserve?] Len Bernstein on the Life and Work of Jacob Riis
- [http://www.unicef.org/sowc97/ The State of the World's Children - a UNICEF study]
- [http://www.galbithink.org/child.htm Child labor and the division of labor in the early English cotton mills]
- [http://freechild.org/SNAYR/childrensrights.htm Resources for young people fighting against child labor] Labor
- ja:児童労働

Child

] A child (plural: children) is a young human. Depending on context it may mean someone who is not yet an adult, or someone who has not yet reached puberty (someone who is prepubescent). Child is also the opposite of parent: adults are the children of their parents despite their maturation beyond infancy; for example "Benjamin, aged 26, is the child of Tobias, aged 63". Similarly in a generalized sense, see child node.

Gender

A female child is called a girl and a male child is a boy (though a small percentage of humans are intersexual, this is a distinction of biological sex, not necessarily social or psychological gender). Apart from the reproductive system, young children do not differ much by sex. Whether cultural and parental practices emphasize or weaken gender identity is subject to debate. In general, the extent to which gender identity is formed during childhood or congenital is a matter of much debate within psychology and genetics. See also nature vs. nurture.

Development

Child development is the study or examination of processes and mechanisms that operate during the physical and mental development of an infant into an adult. Pediatrics is the branch of medicine relating to the care of children. It encompasses ages from prenatal to teenagers and even young adults (ages 0-21 years). Terms for stages of age-related physical development include, with their approximate age ranges: medicine
- Zygote, the point of Conception, fertilization
- Embryo; in the later stages also called fetus
- Birth
- Child
- Infant (baby, newborn) (0-1.5)
- Toddler (1.5-4)
- Primary school age (also called prepubescence) (4-12)
- Elementary school age (also called middle childhood) (4-8)
- Preadolescence (preteen, or late childhood. The child in this and the previous phase are called schoolchild (schoolboy or schoolgirl), when still of primary school age.) (9-12)
- Adolescence and puberty (teenage) (13-19)
- Young adult (16-25)
- Adult (16-21 or older; exact minimum age may vary)
- Early adulthood (20-39)
- Middle age (40-59)
- Advanced adult/Senior citizen (60+)
- Death (occurs at various ages depending on person) Also sometimes used are terms that specify one's age in decades, such as:
- Twenty something (20-29)
- Thirty something (30-39)
- Quadragenarian (40-49) (rarely used since 1980)
- Quinquagenarian (50-59)
- Sexagenarian (60-69)
- Septuagenarian (70-79)
- Octogenarian (80-89)
- Nonagenarian (90-99)
- Centenarian (100-109)
- Supercentenarian (110+)

Cognitive development

- Learning
- Music lessons
- Infant Education
- Language acquisition
- Developmental psychology
- Child art

Notable child prodigies

- Christian Friedrich Heinecken (The Infant of Lübeck)
- Isaac Albeniz
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- Sarah Chang See also: Child prodigy

Human development

Human development refers to all forms of development above, often in the context of clinical or developmental psychology, or as human development theory (in economics, an outgrowth of welfare economics). Both the psychological and economic fields share a special concern with education and language fluency including literacy and numeracy, and with identification and development of more unique talents into the economic variable known as individual capital. Earlier branches of economics see humans in terms of labour for production, means of persuasion or protection, which tend to be skills acquired only in adolescence and adulthood. The human development view is more evident in sports, music and other performing arts, such as acting where the child begins training often as early as three years of age. Think of Tiger Woods and his early practice golfing. While there are problems with such early "streaming", child murder, child abandonment, military use of children and other major social ills are thought to be reduced by a human development approach – as there is a high value assigned to children by the state. The UN Human Development Index is a means of measuring well-being used to rank states by these criteria. Although child abuse is thought to be lower in countries with a high ranking on this Index, that is not easily proven.

References

External links

- [http://www.chabad.org/library/article.asp?AID=42029 Children according to Judaism] Category:Humans Category:Human development Category:Children ja:子供

School work

Schoolwork is work assigned by a teacher, school, or other educational institution. The term generally refers to both work completed at home (homework), as well as work completed during class. Generally, schoolwork is very similar to homework. It is usually up to the teacher's discretion when assignments are to be completed, and often work that is not finished during class will be assigned as homework. By a broad definition, schoolwork can be extended to refer to any academic activities at school, and would therefore include exams, tests, and quizzes as well as the normal type of work. Unlike schoolwork, coursework generally refers to the more advanced work done in college.

Employer

Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. In a commercial setting, the employer conceives of a productive activity, generally with the intention of creating profits, and the employee contributes labour to the enterprise, usually in return for payment of wages. Employment also exists in the public, nonprofit and household sectors. In the United States, the "standard" employment contract is considered to be at-will meaning that the employer and employee are both free to terminate the employment at any time and for any cause, or for no cause at all. To the extent that employment or the economic equivalent is not universal, unemployment exists. Employment is almost universal in capitalist societies. Opponents of capitalism such as Marxists oppose the capitalist employment system, considering it to be unfair that the people who contribute the majority of work to an organization do not receive a proportionate share of the profit. However, the surrealist and the situationist movements were among the few groups to actually oppose work, and during the partially surrealist-influenced events of May 1968 the walls of the Sorbonne were covered with anti-work graffiti. Labourers often talk of "getting a job", or "having a job". This conceptual metaphor of a "job" as a possession has led to its use in slogans such as "money for jobs, not bombs". Similar conceptions are that of "land" as a possession (real estate) or intellectual rights as a possession (intellectual property).

Employer

An employer is a person or institution that hires employees or workers. Employers offer wages to the workers in exchange for the worker's labor-power. Employers include everything from individuals hiring a babysitter to governments and businesses which hired many thousands of employees. In most western societies governments are the largest single employers, but most of the work force is employed in small and medium businesses in the private sector. Note that although employees may contribute to the evolution of an enterprise, the employer maintains autonomous control over the productive base of land and capital, and is the entity named in contracts. The employer typically also maintains ownership of intellectual property created by an employee within the scope of employment and as a function thereof. These are known as "works for hire". Within large organizations the management of employees is often handled by Human Resources departments.

Employee

An employee is any person hired by an employer – typically, a worker hired to do a specific "job". Typical examples include accountants, solicitors, lawyers, photographers, among many other worker categorizations. There are differing classes of employee. Some are permanent and receive a guaranteed salary, while others are hired on short term contracts or as consultants. In this respect, it is important to distinguish independent contractors who are treated differently both in law and in most taxation systems. The employee contributes labour and expertise to an endeavour. Employees perform the discrete activity of economic production. Of the three factors of production, employees usually provide the labor. Some companies feel that a happier work force is a better one and thus offer extra benefits to improve team spirit and performance. However, other employers try to increase profits by giving low wages and few benefits. To resist this, employees can organize into labor unions (American English), or trade unions (British English), who represent most of the available work force and must therefore be listened to by the management. This is the source of considerable bad feeling between the two sides, and sometimes even violence.

Alternatives

An individual who entirely owns the business for which he labours is known as self-employed, although if a self-employed individual has only one client for whom he performs work, he may be considered an employee of that client for tax purposes. Self-employment often leads to incorporation. Incorporation offers certain protections of one's personal assets. Laws of incorporation vary from state to state with California having the most incorporated businesses of any state in the U.S. Workers who are not paid wages, such as volunteers, are generally not considered as being employed. Someone who works under obligation for the purpose of fulfilling a debt without pay is known as a slave and slaveowners are also not considered employers. Some historians suggest that slavery is older than employment, but both arrangements have existed for all recorded history.

Employment Research and Education

[http://www.ilr.cornell.edu Cornell University, School of Industrial and Labor Relations] [http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/lwp Labor and Worklife Program] at Harvard Law School

Films

Death on the Job, Filmmakers: William Guttentag and Vince DiPersio,1991 [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0151804/ Office Space], written and directed by Mike Judge.

External links

- [http://www.asian-nation.org/employment.shtml Asian-Nation: Employment & Occupational Patterns of Asian Americans]
- [http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?r.l1=1073858790&topicId=1073858787&furlname=employment&furlparam=employment&domain=www.businesslink.gov.uk Comprehensive overview of employment law and best practice for the United Kingdom]
- [http://stats.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.toc.htm United States Department of Labor report on the current employment situation]
- [http://www.ozfreeonline.com/jobs/ OzFreeOnline.com: Australian Job Search Listing]
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- [http://www.GoYocal.com/ GoYocal.com: UK Job Listings]
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- [http://london.GoYocal.com/ London.GoYocal.com: London Job Listings]
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- [http://Birmingham.GoYocal.com/ Birmingham.GoYocal.com: Birmingham Job Listings]
- ja:雇用

Small business

A small business may be defined as a business with a small number of employees. The legal definition of "small" often varies by country and industry, but is generally under 100 employees. These businesses are normally privately owned corporations, partnerships, or sole proprietorships. Small businesses are common in many countries, depending on the economic system in operation. Typical examples include: small shops, hairdressers, tradesmen, solicitors, lawyers, accountants, restaurants, guest houses, photographers, small-scale manufacturing etc. The smallest businesses, often located in private homes, are called microbusinesses.

Problems faced by small businesses

Small businesses often face a variety of problems related to their size. A frequent cause of bankruptcy is undercapitalization. This is often a result of poor planning rather than economic conditions, it is common rule of thumb that the entrepreneur should have access to a sum of money at least equal to the projected revenue for the first year of business in addition to his anticipated expenses. For example if the prospective owner thinks that he will generate $100,000 in revenues in the first year with $150,000 in start-up expenses, then he should have no less than $250,000 available. Failure to provide this level of funding for the company could leave the owner liable for all of the company's debt should he end up in bankruptcy court, under the theory of undercapitalization. In addition to insuring that the business has enough capital, the small business owner must also be mindful of gross margin (sales minus variable costs). To break even, the business must be able to reach a level of sales where the gross margin exceeds fixed costs. When they first start out, many small business owners underprice their products to a point where even at their maximum capacity, it would be impossible to break even. The good news is that cost controls or a price increase can often resolve this problem. In the United States, some of the largest concerns of small business owners are insurance costs (such as liability and health), rising energy costs and taxes. In the United Kingdom and Australia, small business owners tend to be more concerned with excessive governmental red tape.

Certification and Trust

Building trust with new customers can be a difficult task for a new and establishing business. Some organizations like the Better Business Bureau and the International Charter now offer Small Business Certification, which certifies the quality of the services and goods you produce and can encourage new and larger customers. These services may require a few hours of work, but a certification may reassure potential customers. However, the most effective way to earn trust is through customer referrals.

Personnel

A good accountant is a requirement. A retired person can usually be located for part-time work. There is a wide gulf between an accountant and a bookkeeper. An accountant can do everything from initial entry right through tax returns and financial statements.

Sources of Funding

There are several sources available for start-up capital. The owner can finance it himself through his savings or an equity loan on his home or other assets. The owner could use financing via a stock issue (although there would be legal problems if it were offered to the general public). A partnership could be formed or perhaps a venture capitalist would provide funds if the business venture plans were sound enough. Relatives could also loan money but the owner should realize that if anyone else participates in the venture some elements of control will be lost. Financing a business with credit card debt is usually a poor choice, the interest rate on credit cards is often several times the rate that would be paid on a line of credit or bank loan. Many owners seek a bank loan in the name of their business, however banks will usually insist on a personal guarantee by the business owner. In the United States, the Small Business Administration (SBA) runs several loan programs that may help a small business secure loans. In these programs, the SBA guarantees a portion of the loan to the issuing bank and thus relieves the bank of some of the risk of extending the loan to a small business.

External links

- [http://www.amiba.net American Independent Business Alliance]
- [http://www.asbanet.org/ American Small Business Alliance]
- [http://www.axa4business.co.uk/ AXA4Business - Business Advice]
- [http://www.nfib.com/ National Federation of Independent Business]
- [http://www.sba.gov/ Small Business Administration]
- [http://www.smallbusinessforums.org Small Business Forum]
- [http://www.score.org/ SCORE]
- [http://www.uspto.gov/smallbusiness/ USPTO Stopfakes.gov Small Business Resources]
- [http://www.smartbiz.com/ Small Business Articles] Category:Business

Child prostitution

The Optional protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography to the Convention on the Rights of the Child states that the prostitution of children or child prostitution is the practice whereby a child is used by others for sexual activities in return for remuneration or any other form of consideration (Article 2(b)). The remuneration or other consideration could be provided to the child concerned or to another person. Most generally, the prostitution of children means that a party other than the child benefits from a commercial transaction in which the child is made available for sexual purposes - either an exploiter intermediary (pimp) who controls or oversees the child’s activities for profit, or an abuser who negotiates an exchange directly with a child in order to receive sexual gratification. The provision of children for sexual purposes may also be a medium of exchange between adults. The Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (Convention No 182) of the International Labour Organization (ILO) provides that the use, procuring or offering of a child for prostitution is one of the worst forms of child labour. This convention, adopted in 1999, provides that countries that had ratified it must eliminate the practice urgently. It enjoys the fastest pace of ratifications in the ILO's history since 1919. The prostitution of children is seen as forming part of the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC), and is sometimes connected to the trafficking of children for sexual purposes. Child sex tourism also falls within the category of the prostitution of children.

Terminology

Child prostitution is sometimes used to describe the wider concept commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC). However, child prostitution excludes other identifiable manifestations of CSEC, such as commercial sexual exploitation through child marriage, domestic child labour and the trafficking of children for sexual purposes. It was the limitations of the term child prostitution that led to the development in the mid-1990s of the term commercial sexual exploitation of children as a more encompassing description of specific forms of sexual violence against children related to trade. Nevertheless, ‘child prostitution’ remains in common usage and is indeed embedded in international instruments. The terms child prostitution and child prostitute carry problematic connotations. This is because these terms, on their own, fail to make it clear that children cannot be expected to make an informed choice to prostitute themselves. The act of prostituting a child is in fact carried out by another party, as had been made clear in the definition provided by the Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. These terms do not adequately express a child’s experience of force, exploitation, and physical and psychological harm inflicted through their engagement in prostitution. A child engaged in prostitution has usually been forced by other people or by circumstances into commercial sex. It is usually adults who create child prostitution through their demand for children as sexual objects, their misuse of power and their desire for profit. In addition, worldwide public understanding of prostitution and prostitute has been shifting as a result of the introduction of terms such as sex worker, intended to raise the perceived status of women in prostitution. However, when it comes to children, to refer to sex work is wholly misleading; again, it downplays the criminal exploitation committed against a child forced into prostitution and suggests that a child ‘worker’ has somehow chosen to follow a ‘profession’. In light of these concerns, international mainstream writing is increasingly avoiding the term child prostitute.

A note on the subject of gender

While most children used in this way are girls, some boys are also prostituted. However, for the purposes of grammatical simplicity, all further references in this article shall be in the feminine with the understanding that the masculine is also sometimes true unless otherwise specified.

Causes and Context

Children are often pushed by social structures and individual agents into situations in which adults take advantage of their vulnerability and sexually exploit and abuse them. An all too common example of structure and agency combining to force a child into commercial sex is where the prostitution of a child follows on from prior sexual abuse, most likely in their own home. The prostitution of children is usually conducted in particular environments, such as from brothels, or bars and clubs, or homes, or particular streets and areas (usually in social downtrodden places). Sometimes it is not organised, but often it is, either on a small scale through individual exploiter-pimps or on a larger scale through extensive criminal networks. See organised crime. Children also engage in prostitution, however, when they exchange sex outside these environments and in return not only for basic needs such as accommodation, food, clothing, crack or safety, but also for favours such as higher grades at school or extra pocket money for desired consumer goods otherwise out of their reach. Some children are prostituted in conditions that appear otherwise perfectly normal. Enjo kosai, a practice reported in Japan, is sometimes considered an example of this. However, this latter practice is by definition voluntary rather than via manipulation. Living and working conditions for children that are prostituted are generally appalling. Most of them live and work in unsanitary conditions, are poorly paid (if at all), unable to access proper medical care, and are kept constantly nearby and subserviant through threat of force. These threats may be physical in nature or more to do with the psyche. It is often reported that large numbers of so-called sex tourists use children involved in prostitution. However it is likely that the majority of their 'clients' are locals. There is evidence that the trafficking of children is increasing globally, in particular in countries where sex tourism takes place, such as Thailand and Costa Rica.

Impact on child victims

The symptoms experienced by child prostitutes are similar to those reported by other sexually abused children, such as depression, self destructive tendencies, inability to enter mainstream of society and ostracism. Child victims of prostitution may experience a lifetime of recurrent illnesses, such as venereal diseases, fertility problems, pregnancy complications, malnutrition and tuberculosis. Children involved in the sex trade face new and potentially fatal dangers in light of the spread of HIV and AIDS.

Prohibition

While the legality of adult prostitution varies between different parts of the world, the prostitution of children is generally considered to be illegal everywhere, even if only on paper. Some literature considers the prostitution of children (or 'child prostitutes') as referring to children who are prepubescent and children who are in the early stages of puberty. It refers to older children (usually 13 to 17 years of age) as 'teenage prostitutes'. However, the key standard is set by the ILO's Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, discussed above, which defines a child as a person under the age of 18 years old. Therefore the prostitution of children applies to the prostitution of all person under 18. The laws of some countries do, however, distinguish between teenage prostitutes and the prostitution of younger children. For example, the Thai government defines a teenage prostitute as being between 15 and 18 years old, while the Japanese government defines one as being between 13 and 18. The basis for making this distinction may be that older children are considered legally able to consent to sex, while sex with younger children is automatically rendered unlawful as statutory rape. However, the definitions of teenage prostitution in some countries do not correlate to the relevant age of consent laws.

Extent

It is very difficult to determine the extent of prostitution of children due to the illegal and hidden nature thereof. Whilst there has been some moral panic and exaggeration of the scale, there is extensive evidence that it is widespread globally. In Ukraine, a survey conducted by the non-governmental organization (NGO) “La Strada-Ukraine” in 2001-2003, based on a sample of 106 women being 'trafficked' out of Ukraine found that 3% were under 18, and the US State Department reported in 2004 that incidents of minors being trafficked was increasing. In Thailand, NGOs have estimated that up to a third of prostitutes are children under 18. [http://www.unicri.it/wwd/trafficking/minors/countries.php] ECPAT New Zealand [http://www.ecpat.org.nz/] and Stop Demand Foundation have cited in a report “The Nature and Extent of the Sex Industry in New Zealand,” a police survey of the New Zealand sex industry that 210 children under the age of 18 years were identified as selling sex, with three-quarters being concentrated in one Police District. [http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0504/S00256.htm] The 1996 report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography estimates that about one million children in Asia alone are victims of the sex trade. According to the International Labour Organization, the problem is especially alarming in Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Cambodia and Nepal. [http://www.ecpatusa.org/index.asp] In Africa and South Asia, many countries are faced with a rising child prostitution problem and the linkage with tourism is evident. Child prostitution and the trafficking of children for sexual exploitation is also increasing in Europe, North America, Japan and Australia.

Sources

- International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour of the International Labour Organisation
- [http://www.ecpat.net/eng/index.asp End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT)], ECPAT Category:Prostitution Category:Sexuality and age Category:Child labour ja:児童買春

Copyright

:For copyright issues in relation to Wikipedia itself, see Wikipedia:Copyrights. Copyright (symbol ©) is a set of exclusive rights granted by government for a limited time to regulate the use of a particular form, way or manner in which an idea or information is expressed. Copyright may subsist in a wide range of creative or artistic forms or "works" and subject matter other than works. These include literary works, movies, musical works, sound recordings, paintings, photographs, software, live performances, television or sound broadcasts and in some jurisdictions industrial designs. Copyright is a type of intellectual property; designs or industrial designs may be a separate or overlapping form of intellectual property in some jurisdictions. industrial designs Copyright law only covers the particular form or manner in which ideas or information have been manifested, the "form of material expression". It is not designed or intended to cover the actual idea, concepts, facts, styles or techniques which may be embodied in or represented by the copyright work. Copyright law provides scope for satirical or interpretive works which themselves may be copyright. For example, the copyright which subsists in relation to a Mickey Mouse cartoon prohibits unauthorised parties from distributing copies of the cartoon or creating derivative works which copy or mimic Disney’s particular talking mouse, but does not prohibit the creation of artistic works about talking mice in general. Other forms of intellectual property may impose legal restrictions where copyright does not.

History of copyright

:Main article: History of copyright Authors, patrons, and owners of works throughout the ages have tried to direct and control how copies of such works could be used once disseminated to others. Mozart's patron, Baroness von Waldstätten, allowed his compositions to be freely performed, while Handel's patron (George I, the first of the Hanoverian kings) jealously guarded "Water Music." Access control was always used as a measure to disallow works from being copied without the consent of the author/owner. The Library of Alexandria (a.k.a. “The Kings Library”) was not a place that an average person could walk into and borrow a book from. Ptolemy III paid the sum of fifteen talents of silver to be allowed to copy the works of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Two major developments in the 14th and 15th centuries seem to have provoked the development of modern copyright. First, the expansion of mercantilist trade in major European cities and the appearance of the secular university helped produce an educated bourgeois class interested in the information of the day. This helped spur the emergence of a “public sphere,” which was increasingly served by entrepreneurial “stationers” who would produce copies of books on demand. Second, Gutenberg's development of movable type and the development and spread of the printing press made mass reproduction of printed works quick and cheap. Before these two developments, the process of copying a work could be nearly as labor intensive and expensive as creating the original, and was largely relegated to monastic scribes. It appears publishers, rather than authors, were the first to seek restrictions on copying printed works. Given that publishers now obtain the copyright from the authors as a condition of mass reproduction of a work, one of the criticisms of the current system is that it benefits publishers more than it does authors. This is a chief argument of the proponents of peer-to-peer file sharing systems. While governments had previously granted monopoly rights to publishers to sell printed works, the modern concept of copyright originated in 1710 with the British Statute of Anne. This statute first accorded exclusive rights to authors rather than publishers, and it included protections for consumers of printed work ensuring that publishers could not control their use after sale. It also limited the duration of such exclusive rights to 28 years, after which all works would pass into the public domain. The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works of 1886 first established the recognition of copyrights between sovereign nations (copyrights were also provided by the Universal Copyright Convention of 1952, but today this agreement is largely only of historical interest). Under the Berne convention, copyrights for creative works generally are not granted, but rather automatically assumed; an author does not have to "register" or "apply for" a copyright. As soon as a work is "fixed", that is, written or recorded on some physical medium, its author is automatically entitled to all exclusive rights to the work and any derivative works unless and until the author explicitly disclaims them, or until the copyright expires.

United Kingdom copyright methodology

:Main article: Copyright law of the United Kingdom English law states that an individual's work is placed under copyright law as soon as it leaves that person's mind and is placed in some physical form, be it a painting, a musical work written in manuscript or an architectural schematic. Once in physical form, as long as it is an original work (in the sense of not having been copied from an existing work, rather than in the sense of being novel or unique), copyright in that work is automatically vested in (i.e. owned by) the person who put the concept into material form. There may be exceptions to this rule, depending on the nature of the work, whether it was created in the course of employment and the purposes for which the work was created. Evidentiary issues may arise if the person who authored a work has only their word to prove that the work is original and their own work. The author of an unpublished manuscript or little-known publication, which is remarkably similar to a popular novel, will have an uphill battle convincing a court that the popular novel infringes the copyright in their obscure work. Taking some precautionary steps may help to establish independent creation and authorship. For example, when a web designer designs a webpage (based upon his own work) under a contract for services, the webmaster owns the copyright in at least the underlying code of that website. A common and simple practice to obtain evidence in favour of authorship is to place the copyright material in a envelope or package together with a document signed by several people stating that they have examined the work prior to it being sealed and that in their opinion it is original. Once this is done the package is mailed to the owner by recorded delivery, which helps to establish when the work was created, who the originator of the work is and that there are signatory validators prepared to state that it is original. Once this process is complete the package and contents may be able to be used in a court of law as evidence if necessary.

United States copyright law

:Main article: United States copyright law Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution for the United States gives the United States Congress the power “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” Congress first exercised this power with the enactment of the Copyright Act of 1790, and has changed and updated statutory copyright law multiple times since. The Copyright Act of 1976, though it has been modified since its enactment, forms the basis of copyright law in the United States today.
- Title 17, U.S.C., Section 105, witholds copyright protection from all publications produced by the United States Government, and its agents or employees while in their employment. The specific language is as follows:
- "Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise."
- However, nothing in the law prohibits the United States Government from limiting commercial access to any work produced under 17USC105, and there are specific prohibitions against automatic access to work otherwise covered under 17USC105 for commercial purposes.

Obtaining and enforcing copyright

Typically, a work must meet minimal standards of originality in order to qualify for copyright, and the copyright expires after a set period of time (some jurisdictions may allow this to be extended). Different countries impose different tests, although generally the requirements are low; in the United Kingdom there has to be some 'skill, originality and work' which has gone into it. However, even fairly trivial amounts of these qualities are sufficient for determining whether a particular act of copying constitutes an infringement of the author's original expression. In Australia, it has been held that a single word is insufficient to comprise a copyright work. In the United States, copyright has relatively recently been made automatic, which has had the effect of making it more like a property right. Thus, as with property, a copyright need not be granted or obtained through official registration with the government. Once an idea has been reduced to material form, for example by securing it in a fixed medium (such as a drawing, sheet music, photograph, a videotape or a letter), the copyright holder is entitled to enforce his or her exclusive rights. However, while a copyright need not be officially registered for the copyright owner to begin exercising his exclusive rights, registration of works (where the laws of that jurisdiction provide for registration) does have its benefits: serving as prima facie evidence of a valid copyright and enabling the copyright holder to seek statutory damages and attorney's fees (whereas in the USA, for instance, registering after an infringement only enables one to receive actual damages and lost profits). The original holder of the copyright may be the employer of the actual author rather than the author himself if the work is a "work for hire". Again, this principle is widespread; in English law the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 provides that where a work in which copyright subsists is made by an employee in the course of that employment, the copyright is automatically assigned to the employer. Copyrights are generally enforced by the holder in a civil law court, but there are also criminal infringement statutes. Criminal sanctions are generally aimed at serious counterfeiting activity, but may now become more commonplace as the copyright collectives like the RIAA are more and more targeting the file sharing home Internet user. Thus far however, these cases have usually been settled outside of court, with demands of payment of several thousand dollars accompanied by nothing more than a threat to sue the file sharer, thus such cases do not even make it to civil law courts in reality. Absence of the copyright symbol does not mean that the work is not covered by copyright.

Copyright notices

In some jurisdictions, in order to obtain a copyright when a work such as a book or movie is created the work generally should contain a copyright notice. This notice is comprised by a letter c inside a circle (i.e., ©), or the word "copyright", followed by the year(s) of the copyright and the name of the copyright holder. Certain alternative formats were permitted for certain types of works. A copyright notice serves to inform any potential users that the work is copyrighted. This requirement was generally the result of previous United States statutory requirements, but since 1989 in the U.S., the use of copyright notices has become optional. With the exception of a small number of countries which still require notices to be on works, this requirement is generally optional except for works which were originally created before the particular country became a member of the Berne Convention (the members of which are collectively known as the Berne Union). A copyright notice is no longer required for a work to be covered by copyright in jurisdictions which have acceded to the Berne Convention. In most jurisdictions a work may be copyrighted from the moment of its creation regardless of whether or not it bears a copyright notice. However, the existence of a copyright notice may make it easier to claim certain damages for infringement in legal proceedings, as a defendant may be presumed to have ignored the notice and intentionally infringed copyright. The symbol, ©, is Unicode symbol 00A9 in hexadecimal, and can be entered into (X)HTML as ©, ©, or ©

Year of copyright

The year(s) of copyright are listed after the © symbol. If the work has been modified (i.e., a new edition) and recopyrighted, there will be more than one year listed.

"All rights reserved"

The phrase, All rights reserved, was a formal notice that all rights granted under existing copyright law are retained by the copyright holder and that legal action may be taken against copyright infringement. It was provided as a result of the Buenos Aires Convention of 1910, which required some statement of reservation of rights to grant international coverage in all the countries that were signatory to that convention. While it is commonplace to see it, this notice is now superfluous, as every country that is a member of the Buenos Aires Convention is also a member of the Berne Convention, which requires copyright to be valid without any formality of notice. This phrase is sometimes still used even on some documents to which the original author does not retain all rights granted by copyright law, such as works released under a copyleft license. This is a habitual formality and is unlikely to have legal consequences.

The exclusive rights of the copyright holder

Several exclusive rights typically attach to the holder of a copyright:
- to produce copies or reproductions of the work and to sell those copies (including, typically, electronic copies)
- to import or export the work
- to create derivative works (adapt the work)
- to perform or display the work publicly
- to sell or assign these rights to others The phrase "exclusive right" means that only the copyright holder is free to exercise the attendant rights, and others are prohibited from doing them without the consent of the copyright holder. Copyright is often called a "negative right", as it serves to prohibit people (e.g. readers, viewers, or listeners) from doing something, rather than permit people (e.g. authors) to do something. In this way it is similar to the unregistered design right in English law and European law. There is however a critique which rejects this assertion as being based on a philosophical interpretation of copyright law as an entity, and is not universally shared. There is also debate on whether copyright should be considered a property right or a moral right. Many argue that copyright does not exist merely to restrict third parties from publishing ideas and information, and that defining copyright purely as a negative right is contrary to the public policy objective of encouraging authors to create new works and enrich the public domain. In the United States, the terms "copyright" and "patent" do not appear in the Constitution; they are merely the forms of exclusive rights that the American legislature is constitutionally empowered to secure to accomplish the stated purpose of promoting the progress of science and useful arts (e.g. according to Article I, Section 8, Clause 8: "Congress shall have Power [...] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."). The right to adapt a work means to transform the way in which the work is expressed. Examples include developing a stage play or film script from a novel; translating a short story; and making an arrangement of a musical work.

Limits and exceptions to copyright

:Main article: Limitations and exceptions to copyright

Idea-expression dichotomy and the merger doctrine

:Main article: Idea-expression divide A copyright covers the expression of an idea, not the idea itself — this is called the idea/expression or fact/expression dichotomy. For example, if a book is written describing a new way to organize books in a library, a copyright does not prohibit a reader from freely using and describing that concept to others; it is only the particular expression of that process as originally described that is covered by copyright. One might be able to obtain a patent for the method, but that is a different area of law. Compilations of facts or data may also be copyrighted, but such a copyright is thin; it only applies to the particular selection and arrangement of the facts, not to the particular facts themselves. In some jurisdictions databases are expressly covered by statute. In some cases, ideas may be capable of intelligible expression in only one or a limited number of ways. Therefore even the expression in these circumstances is not covered. In the United States this is known as the merger doctrine, because the expression is considered to be inextricably merged with the idea. Merger is often pleaded as an affirmative defense to charges of infringement. That doctrine is not necessarily accepted in other jurisdictions.

The first-sale doctrine (exhaustion of rights)

:Main article: First-sale doctrine Copyright law does not restrict anyone from reselling legitimately obtained copies of copyrighted works, provided that those copies were originally produced by or with the permission of the copyright holder. It is therefore legal, for example, to resell a copyrighted book or CD. In the United States this is known as the first-sale doctrine, and was established by the courts to clarify the legality of reselling books in second-hand bookstores. Some countries may have parallel importation restrictions that allow the copyright holder of their licensee to control the aftermarket. This may mean for example that a copy of a book that does not infringe copyright in the country where it was printed does infringe copyright in a country into which it is imported for retailing. The first-sale doctrine is known as exhaustion of rights in other countries and is a principle which applies to other intellectual property rights. Of course, it may be wondered why the exclusive right to sell copies of one's work needs to be specifically provided for by law, as the sale of unauthorized copies necessarily means the copyright holder's exclusive right to produce such copies has been breached. In addition, copyright, in most cases, does not prohibit one from acts such as modifying, defacing, or destroying his or her own legitimately obtained copies of copyrighted works, so long as duplication is not involved. However, in countries that implement moral rights, a copyright holder can in some cases successfully prevent the mutilation or destruction of a work that is publicly visible.

Fair use and fair dealing

:Main articles: fair use and fair dealing Copyright does not prohibit all copying or replication. In the United States, the fair use doctrine, codified by the Copyright Act of 1976 as 17 U.S.C. Section 107, permits some copying and distribution. The statute does not clearly define fair use, but instead gives four non-exclusive factors to consider in a fair use analysis. In the United Kingdom and many other Commonwealth countries, a similar notion of fair dealing was established by the courts or through legislation. The concept is sometimes not well defined, however in Canada, private copying for personal use has been expressly permitted by statute since 1999. In Australia, the fair dealing exceptions under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) are a limited set of circumstances under which copyright material can be legally copied or adapted without the copyright holder's consent. Fair dealing uses are research and study; review and criticism; news reportage and the giving of professional advice (ie legal advice). Under current Australian law it is still a breach of copyright to copy, reproduce or adapt copyright material for personal or private use without permission from the copyright owner. Other technical exemptions from infringement may also apply, such as the temporary reproduction of a work in information technology. In the United States the AHRA (Audio Home Recording Act Codified in Section 10, 1992) prohibits action against consumers making noncommercial recordings of music, in return for royalties on both media and devices plus mandatory copy-control mechanisms on recorders. :Section 1008. Prohibition on certain infringement actions :No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings. Later acts amended US Copyright law so that making 10 copies or more is considered commercial, and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act effectively permits DRM (Digital Rights/Restrictions Management) to prevent manufacture, importation, or distribution of recording devices if the device bypasses an access or copy control. It is absolutely vital to remember that copyright regimes can differ greatly between countries. It would be dangerous to assume that an activity permitted by the laws of one country is necessarily permitted elsewhere.

Critiques

:Main article: Philosophy of copyright Critics of copyright as a whole fall broadly into two camps: Those who assert that the very concept of copyright has never been of net benefit to society, and has always served simply to enrich a few at the expense of creativity; and those who assert that the existing copyright regime must be reformed to maintain its relevance in the new Information society. Among the latter group, there are also some who continue to agree with copyright as a concept to grant authors rights, but feel that it "outlives its welcome" by granting copyright for too long, far beyond the lifetime of the author, and is therefore of little direct benefit to him or her. This is typically attributed to corporate lobbying. To most critics, the general problem is that the current (international) copyright system undermines its own goal (Boyle 1996, 142). The concepts of the public domain and the intrinsic freedom of information are necessary precepts for creators to be able to build on published expression. But these are gradually being eroded, as copyright terms are repeatedly extended to last beyond the lifetime of the audience which experienced and knows of the original work. Other copyright scholars believe that irrespective of contemporary advances in technology, copyright remains the fundamental way by which authors, sculptors, artists, musicians and others can fund the creation of new works, and that absent legal protection of their material interests, many valuable books and pieces of art would not be created. This interest is arguably served even by repeated extension of copyright terms to encompass multiple generations beyond the copyright holder's life, not only because many "authors" and copyright holders are corporations, but also because the right of an author's heirs to continue to profit from a copyrighted work may provide a substantial part of the incentive to create. Another effect of the repeated extension of copyright term is that current authors are shielded from competition from a wide public domain. By the time works currently enter the public domain, they almost always have become obsolete. The recent success of free software projects such as Linux, Mozilla Firefox, and the Apache web server has demonstrated that quality works can be created even in the absence of copyright-enforced monopoly rents[http://www2.cio.com/consultant/report2214.html]. Instead, these products use copyright to enforce their license terms, which are designed to ensure the free nature of the work, rather than securing exclusive rights for the holder for monetary gain; such a license is called a copyleft or free software license. Copyrighted works replicated onto digital media are easily and trivially copied via file sharing. Attempts to prevent this have been largely unsuccessful, and file sharing almost never results in severe consequences for the violators. Producers of copyrighted material often attribute losses in their sales to online copying, yet they generally continue to produce material and make profits. This lack of apparent effect has been gradually eroding the belief that copyright as presently constructed is indispensable. A few artists actually support the file sharing of their own works, arguing that it expands their audience to include people who would not otherwise be able or willing to legally purchase their material. It can be argued that, rather than criminalize the many millions of file sharers around the world who now routinely use the internet to commit acts that breach copyright (given that copyright laws have proven unenforceable), copyright holders use the legal system to apply extortion by charging for products that are readily available for free. Bill Gates is on record as saying that there is no way technically of preventing copyrighted digital material being replicated, so future attempts to enforce copyrights may become uneconomic, as well as unpopular politically. In the meantime, companies or indviduals held by a court to have infringed copyright may be required to pay substantial amounts in damages. A recent and highly visible example is the Australian Kazaa case, Universal Music Australia Pty Ltd v Sharman License Holdings Ltd [2005] FCA 1242 (5 September 2005); the company operating the Kazaa file-sharing system and individuals associated with it were held to have authorised infringement of copyright in musical recordings. The recoding industry is expected to seek multimillion dollar damages. Copyright can also be used to stifle political criticism. For example, in the US the contents of talk shows and similar programs are covered by copyright. Robert Greenwald, a director of Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War documentary was refused the right to use a clip of a George W. Bush interview from NBC's Meet the Press. Although the fair use provisions may apply in such cases, the risks and the pressure from insurance companies usually prevents the use of materials without permission. In the US in 2003, controversial changes implemented by the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act extending the length of copyright under U.S. copyright law by 20 years were constitutionally challenged unsuccessfully in the United States Supreme Court. The Court, in the case called Eldred v. Ashcroft, held inter alia that in placing existing and future copyrights in parity in the CTEA, Congress acted within its authority and did not transgress constitutional limitations. Other jurisdictions may have enacted legislation to provide for similar extensions of the copyright term. Some online authors, such as Cory Doctorow, retain the copyright to their work but license it for free distribution (for example under a Creative Commons License). This has the benefit of providing a structured scheme under which authors can loosen some of the barriers that copyright imposes on others, allowing them to partially contribute the work to the community (in the form of giving a general grant on copying, reproduction, use or adaptation subject to certain conditions) while retaining other exclusive rights they hold in it. :Main article: Copyright social conflict Copyright is also conceived by some as an "artificial barrier" in that "expressions" could be freely exchanged between individuals and groups if there were no copyright or other legal restrictions preventing. Such people believe that as the state does not necessarily possess the moral authority to enact copyright laws, individuals may vary in their observation of such laws. Copyright concepts are perceived to be under challenge in the modern technological era, from the increasing use of peer to peer filesharing, to the downward trend in profits for major record labels and the movie industry. Public interest groups and industry and alike are entering the public education system to teach the curriculum from their perspectives. The lobbying group for the MPAA have a curriculum entitled [http://www.mediainfocenter.org/story.asp?story_id=61684893 What's the Diff?] taught by a group of volunteers called Junior Achievement. The Business Software Alliance also has their own curriculum program called [http://www.playitcybersafe.com Play it Cybersafe], which is distributed to school children through a magazine called The Weekly Reader. There seems to be a general consensus in the USA that there needs to be some curriculum materials for school-aged children on copyright. A public-wiki has been installed by Downhill Battle to build a copyright curriculum called [http://www.copyrightcurriculum.com Copyright Curriculum] for teachers to download and use in their classrooms. [http://www.ala.org The American Librarian Association] will also be releasing their own curriculum for librarians to distribute in winter 2004.

Other aspects

Transfer and licensing

Copyright may be assigned or transferred from one party to another. For example, a musician who records an album will sign an agreement with a record company in which the musician agrees to transfer all copyrights in the recordings to the company in exchange for royalties and other terms. One might ask why a copyright holder would ever give up his rights. The answer is that large companies generally have production and marketing capabilities far beyond that of the author. In the digital age of music, music may be copied and distributed for a minimal cost through the Internet, however the record industry attempts to provide the service of promoting and marketing the artist so that the work can reach a much larger audience. A copyright holder does not have to transfer all rights completely. Some of the rights may be transferred, or else the copyright holder may grant another party a non-exclusive license to copy and/or distribute the work in a particular region or for a specified period of time. A transfer or licence may have to meet particular formal requirements in order to be effective; see section 239 of the Australia Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). Under Australian law, it is not enough to pay for a work to be created in order to also own the copyright. The copyright itself must be expressly transferred in writing. Copyright may also be licensed. Some jurisdictions may provide that certain classes of copyrighted works be made available under a statutory license (e g. musical works in the United States). This is also called a compulsory license, because under this scheme, anyone who wishes to copy a covered work does not need the permission of the copyright holder, but instead merely files the proper notice and pays a set fee established by statute (or by agency decision under statutory guidance) for every copy made. Failure to follow the proper procedures would then result in the copyist being vulnerable to an infringement suit. Because of the difficulty of following this process for every individual work, copyright collectives or collecting societies and performing rights organizations (such as ASCAP, BMI, RIAA and MPAA) have been formed to sell the rights to hundreds of works at once. Though this market solution bypasses the statutory license, the availability of the statutory fee still helps dictate the price per work that collective rights organizations charge, driving it down to what the avoidance of procedural hassle would justify.

Brief comparison with other forms of intellectual property

In general, copyright law covers the creative or artistic expression of an idea, patent law covers inventions, trademark law covers distinctive signs which are used in relation to products or services as indicators of origin, registered designs law covers the look or appearance of a manufactured or functional article and the law of confidential information covers secret or sensitive knowledge or information. Although copyright and trademark laws are theoretically distinct, more than one type of them may cover the same item or subject matter. For example, in the case of the Mickey Mouse cartoon, the image and name of Mickey Mouse would be the subject of trademark legislation, while the cartoon itself would be subject to copyright. Titles and character names from books or movies may also be trademarked while the works from which they are drawn may qualify for copyright. Another point of distinction is that a copyright (and a patent) is generally subject to a statutorily-defined fixed term, whereas a trademark registration may remain in force indefinitely if the trademark is periodically used and renewal fees continue to be duly paid to the relevant jurisdiction's trade marks office or registry. Once the term of a copyright has expired, the formerly copyrighted work enters the public domain and may be freely used or exploited by anyone, as courts in the United States and the United Kingdom have rejected the doctrine of a common law copyright. Public domain works should not be confused with works that are publically available. It is completely incorrect, for instance, that simply posting material on the Internet places the material into the public domain such that anyone can freely copy, adapt or commercially exploit the work. Apart from anything else, the material may have been posted by someone who had no right to do so, let alone the power to waive copyright.

How long Copyrights last

Copyright subsists for a variety of lengths in different jurisdictions, with different categories of works and the length it subsists for also depends on whether a work is published or unpublished. In most of the world the default length of copyright for many works is either life of the author plus 50 years, or plus 70 years. Copyright in general always expires at the end of the year concerned, rather than on the exact date of the death of the author.

Moral rights

:Main article: Moral rights Many countries recognize certain moral rights of the author of a copyrighted work, following adoption of the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (which in turn requires, inter alia, the implementation of the relevant provisions in the Berne Convention). Two key moral rights are the right not to have the work altered or destroyed without consent, and the right to be attributed as the author of the work. The Monty Python comedy troupe famously managed to rely on moral rights in 1975 in legal proceedings against American TV network ABC for airing re-edited versions of Monty Python's Flying Circus. The American exclusive rights tradition is inconsistent with the notion of moral rights as it was constituted in the Civil Code tradition stemming from France's revolution. In the United States, exclusive rights are statutory and granted by Congress. The first major copyright case in the United States, Wheaton v. Peters, established that copyright was not a natural right or a common law right. Although the case was later nullified when the Supreme Court declared it null and void, it soon became a symbol for the morality of copyright. When the United States signed the Berne Convention, they stipulated that the Convention's "moral rights" provisions were addressed sufficiently by other statutes, such as laws covering libel and slander. In most of Europe it is not possible for authors to assign their moral rights (unlike the copyright itself, which is regarded as an item of property which can be sold, licensed, lent, mortgaged or given like any other property). They can agree not to enforce them (and such terms are very common in contracts in Europe). There may also be a requirement for the author to 'assert' these moral rights before they can be enforced. In many books, for example, this is done on a page near the beginning, in amongst the British Library/Library of Congress data. Some European countries also provide for artist resale rights, which mean that artists are entitled to a portion of the appreciation of the value of their work each time it is sold. These rights are granted on the background of a different tradition, which granted droits d'auteur rather than copyright, also granting all creators various moral rights beyond the economic rights recognized in most copyright jurisdictions (see also parallel import).

Typefaces

In the United States, typeface designs are not covered by copyright, but may be covered by patents if sufficiently novel. Germany (in 1981) and the United Kingdom (in 1989) have passed laws making typeface designs copyrightable. The British law, unlike the German, is retroactive, so designs produced before 1989 are also copyrighted if the copyrights would not have already expired.

Unusual copyright grants

On rare occasions, rights can be granted outside of usual legislation. When the current UK copyright legislation was debated in Parliament, former Prime Minister Lord Callaghan of Cardiff successfully proposed an amendment entitling the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children to indefinitely retain the rights to payments of royalties for performances of Peter Pan. This privilege can be seen explicitly written into [http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1988/Ukpga_19880048_en_28.htm#sdiv6 Schedule 6] of the Act. The King James Version of the Bible also has an unusual status: While it is in the public domain throughout most of the world, production in the UK must be authorized by the Crown. Lily's Latin Grammar was also under perpetual crown copyright as of 1911.[http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/C/CO/COPYRIGHT.htm]

Registering copyright in the United States

While copyright in the United States automatically attaches upon the creation of an original work of authorship, registration with the copyright office puts a copyright holder in a better position if litigation arises over the copyright. A copyright holder desiring to register his or her copyright should do the following: #Obtain and complete appropriate [http://www.copyright.gov/forms/ form.] #Prepare clear renditon of material being submitted for copyright #Send both documents to U.S. Copyright Office in Washington, D.C.

Miscellaneous further reading

- Lehman, Bruce: Intellectual Property and the National Information Infrastructure (Report of the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights, 1995)
- Gantz, John & Rochester, Jack B. Pirates of the Digital Millennium. Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2005, ISBNO-13-146315-2
- Mazzone, Jason. Copyfraud. http://ssrn.com/abstract=787244
- Moores, Simon - "March of the Spiders:" Policy Challenges for Copyright in the Digital Publishing Environment (2005)
- Ghosemajumder, Shuman. [http://shumans.com/p2p-business-models.pdf Advanced Peer-Based Technology Business Models]. MIT Sloan School of Management, 2002.
- Silverthorne, Sean. [http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item.jhtml?id=4206&t=innovation Music Downloads: Pirates- or Customers?]. Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, 2004.

External links

- [http://www.ipjustice.org IP Justice] - international civil liberties organization that promotes balanced intellectual property law
- [http://www.malaquias.net/en/joseluis/articles/copyright.pdf An Alternative Economic System for the Information Era] An argument on the inadequacy of the copyright system, and a proposal for an alternative economic system for copyright
- [http://thoughtyard.com/content/view/13/37 Copywar] A proposal to replace the copyright system
- [http://www.copyrightcurriculum.com Copyright Curriculum] (public wiki of a comprehensive view on copyright for students)
- [http://www.andrew82.net/articles/politics/informationage/ The End of the Information Age] An analysis of the history of Copyright policy and its impact on society
- [http://www.templetons.com/brad/copyright.html A brief intro to copyright] (by Brad Templeton, with more in-depth links)
- [http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html 10 Big Myths about copyright explained]
- [http://www.templetons.com/brad/copysolve.html Responses to the Copyright Crisis] - what can be done?
- Thomas Babbington Macaulay [http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/25/1345/03329 on copyright (1841)]
- The [http://www.fepproject.org/policyreports/copyright.html Free Expression Policy Project report on copyright]
- The differences between the length of copyright provided by different countries creates situations where it is legal to publish a work on the Web in one country (e.g., Bulgaria), but illegal to view that Web page in another country (e.g., the United States): http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/nonus.html
- [http://orion.mt.tama.hosei.ac.jp/hideaki/twocopy.htm The Origin of Two American Copyright Theories --A Case of the Reception of English Law --], The Journal of Arts Management, Law and Society, Vol. 30, No. 3, (Fall 2000, [http://www.heldref.org/ Heldref Publications]) by Hideaki Shirata
- [http://www.michaellorenzen.com/eric/copyright.html Libraries in Today's Digital Age: The Copyright Controversy]
- [http://www.infoanarchy.org/wiki/wiki.pl?Copyright_Background Copyright Background] on infoanarchy.org including links to many countries laws, and economics of copyright
- [http://www.mp3board.com/ MP3Board.com] - News site which aggregates copyright news (and other IP news).
- [http://slashdot.org/features/00/01/20/1316236.shtml B. Gates Rants About Software Copyrights - in 1980]
- [http://www.copyleft.no COPYLEFT Software]
- [http://www.freeculture.org FreeCulture.org]
- [http://www.downhillbattle.org DownHill Battle]
- [http://www.dacs.org.uk The Design & Artists Copyright Society] - A not-for-profit organization founded by artists to protect and promote their copyright.
- Article "[http://www.law.berkeley.edu/journals/btlj/articles/vol15/frischmann/frischmann.html The Evolving Common Law Doctrine of Copyright Misuse: A Unified Theory and Its Application to Software]" by Brett Frischmann and Dan Moylan
- [http://www.copyright.gov/ United States Copyright Office]
- [http://creativecommons.org/ The Creative Commons] - A not-for-profit organization that offers a free and less restrictive alternative to the Copyright.
- [http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/2002dltr0023.html (2002 Duke L. & Tech. Rev. 0023)] MUSIC PIRACY AND THE AUDIO HOME RECORDING ACT
- [http://zentelligence.blogspot.com/March%20of%20the%20Spiders.pdf March of the Spiders] (by Simon Moores, for the UK Aediles Policy Unit)
- [http://www.uspto.gov/smallbusiness/ USPTO Stopfakes.gov Small Business Resources]
- [http://www.bromsun.com/practices/copyright-portfolio-development/flowchart.htm A flowchart which helps to determine the copyright status of a particular work in the US.]
- [http://www.feedforall.com/rss-copyright-debate.htm Copyright Debate and RSS]
- [http://digital-copyright.ca/ Digital Copyright Canada forum] for debating Canadian PCT (Patent, copyright, trademark and other related rights) law.
- [http://fairuse.stanford.edu/ Copyright & Fair Use], Stanford University Libraries Category:Intellectual property Category:Data management Category:Library and information science ko:저작권 ja:著作権 simple:Copyright th:ลิขสิทธิ์

Child singer

A child singer is a child who has a career as a singer. Child singers and people who have been child singers (often still active as singers) include:
- Heintje Simons (1955)
- Michael Jackson (1958)
- Danny de Munk (1970)
- Britney Spears (1981)
- LeAnn Rimes (1982)
- Daniel Siegert (?)
- Jan Smit (1985)
- Aaron Carter (1987)
- (Lil') Bow Wow (1987)
- Eric West (1982)
- Stevie Brock (1990) See also: List of teen idols and Child actor. Singer

Human rights

Human rights refers to the concept of human beings as having universal rights, or status, regardless of legal jurisdiction, and likewise other localizing factors, such as ethnicity and nationality. The existence, validity and the content of human rights continue to be the subject to debate in philosophy and political science. However human rights are defined in international law & covenants, and further, in the domestic laws of many states. There is, however, a great deal of variance between how human rights norms are defined in these multiple contexts and how they are upheld in different local jurisdictions. Within particular states, "human rights" refer to safeguards for the individual against arbitrary use of power by the government regarding 1) the well being of individuals, 2) the freedom and autonomy of individuals, and 3) the representation of the human interest in government. These rights commonly include the right to life, the right to an adequate standard of living, freedom from torture and other mistreatment, freedom of religion and of expression, freedom of movement, the right to self-determination, the right to education, and the right to participation in cultural and political life. These norms are based on the legal and political traditions of United Nations member states and are incorporated into international human rights instruments (see below). With the exception of so called non-derogable human rights (the four most important are the right to life, the right to be free from slavery, the right to be free from torture and the right to be free from retroactive application of penal laws), most human rights can be limited or even pushed aside during times of war.[http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/enable/comp210.htm] Conduct in war is governed by International Humanitarian Law.

Human Rights in international law

The 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights resolution was adopted virtually unanimously by the United Nations General Assembly. While not legally binding, it urged member nations to promote a number of human, civil, economic and social rights, asserting these rights are part of the "foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world". The declaration limits the behavior of the state, which now has duties to the citizen (rights-duty duality). Efforts to create a legally binding form of the charter led to disagreements between various states over which rights were acceptable. Thus, two different covenents, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (opened for signature 1966, entered into force March 23, 1976) [http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/a_ccpr.htm] and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (opened for signature 1966, entered into force January 3, 1976) [http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/a_cescr.htm] were created which bind those states that ratify them to protect the rights listed in the respective covenant. Together these three documents constitute the International Bill of Human Rights. There have also been a number of other conventions regarding particular rights, including the
- Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (entry into force: 1951) [http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/p_genoci.htm]
- Convention against Torture (entry into force: 1984) [http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/h_cat39.htm]
- Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (entry into force: 1969) [http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/d_icerd.htm]
- Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (entry into force: 1981) [http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/frame.htm]
- Convention on the Rights of the Child (entry into force: 1989) [http://www.unicef.org/crc/crc.htm]
- Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (entry into force: 2002) A modern interpretation of the original Declaration of Human Rights was made in the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action[http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/vienna.htm], adopted by the World Conference on Human Rights in 1993. The degree of unanimity over these conventions, in terms of how many and which countries have ratified them vary, as does the degree to which they are respected by various states. The UN has set up a number of bodies to monitor and study human rights, under the leadership of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (HCHR). There are also many regional agreements and organisations governing human rights including the European Court of Human Rights, the only international court with jurisdiction to deal with cases brought by individuals (not states). the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Types of human rights

Human rights are typically divided into two categories: negative human rights (rights to be free from) and positive human rights (rights to), although other categorizations exist. Negative human rights, which follow mainly from the Anglo-American legal tradition, denote actions that a government should not take. These are codified in the United States Bill of Rights, the English Bill of Rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and include freed

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