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Authors, Intellectual Property and Copyright
Piracy is a term used for the illegal copying of a product. In terms of software it refers to the use of illegally copied software. This occurs when the copyright of an author or developer has been broken. Copyright occurs in different situations from, copying from one machine to another, to companies distributing the software for profit.
Copyright situations can get quite complex at who is at fault and because of how it was transmitted around.
Intellectual property is the fruits of a person’s mental labour. This is protected under laws such that that person’s labour cannot be exploited into being used illegally by someone else.
Copyright is basically the protection of the illegal distribution of a product. There are copyright laws in place to help prevent copyright from occurring. These laws give the creator the right to produce how much of the product they want as it falls under these laws to help protect the creator’s rights to the idea’s of a product. The main copyright law is that of the Copyright Act 1968, which has been amended several times due to the nature of further, evolving changes and the inclusion of software.
Copyright will generally exist up until the death of the last author and 50 years extra on top of that. Generally copyright of a work will exist even though it has not been formally written.