Academic Integrity in a Digital Age

I hope you remember some first pages of a dissertation or a thesis. Especially a section on Copyright. Have you ever thought, a reason to have that space in a dissertation? In books we see the ISBN number. Did you ever though why books have an ISBN? In this section we discuss the copyright issues. In our daily lives we have been constantly hearing about people owning original literary works such as publications, novels, music, computer programs and articles in newspapers. If some other people want to use, reproduce, copy or distribute they need to get permission from the owner of the original work. The owners of these works have the rights to control the numerous ways from which his or her work can be distributed through ‘copyright’ ownership.

Copyright is a legal term used to explain the rights that originators have over their literary and artistic works. These range from books, music, paintings, sculptures, films, computer programs, databases, advertisements to maps and technical drawings. Generally, it is said that copyright protects the expression of ideas (e.g. Words and illustrations) while ideas alone are not protected. For a work to gain a copyright protection it has to be original (meaning that adequate skills, labour and judgement are spent on creating it), type protected by copyright under the act and should be conveyed in a certain fixed format, for example in writing; whether in paper form or electronic. However, that ownership can be transferred to another person and that person becomes the new owner. It is only the owner who can grant permission to use his or her work, whereas legally this permission is known as license. The license has been just one, and there is transfer as well as assignment of copyright.  The following are some copyright symbols:

The duration of a copyright depends on the number of factors, including the type of work in question, whether the work is published or unpublished, the originator is known or unknown, and whether the conversion arrangements from previous copyright registration applies or not. For instance the literary, artistic, drama and musical works copyright duration covers the lifetime of the author plus a period of 70 years from the end of the year in which the author died. Video recordings and films expire at the end of 70 years from the year end of the death of the last person who was among the originators of the recording process. On the other hand, computer generated works' copyrights expires 50 years from the end of the year in which the work was made while typographical arrangements of published versions lasts for only 25 years from the first publication. Generally, most of works’ copyrights are covered by the lifetime of the author plus 50 years after death. Copyright is governed by both international convention such as the Berne Convention and WIPO Copyright Treaty, but also national laws such as Copyrights and Neighbouring Rights act, 1999 for Tanzania.