Why do people copyright their creations?
There are many reasons someone might want to claim and/or enforce copyright in a creation. Some of these reasons include:
- So they can make money out of it. This is the one most people think about first.
- So they can prevent the distribution of their creation. An example of this is confidential in-house information that people do not want to be copied outside of an organisation. Copyright is a useful tool to prevent that kind of copying.
- So they can control how it is distributed and/or used. e.g. a church might want to give away their music freely but not have it incorporated into a pornographic video.
- So they can control how it is modified. e.g. training materials for a system might be made available by the creator of a system, but they do not want these materials altered.
Often people think copyright is only useful for those people who want to make money out of their creations. There are many other reasons for using copyright.
