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If a work is available online then can’t anyone use it? Isn’t it public domain?
Copyright applies irrespective of whether the work is online. The work still has an author and copyright law still allows the author to set some rules on how their work is used by others. If not expressed somewhere in the online work itself, these ...
Publishing your Work
Publishing contracts Often in submitting your work for publication, you may be required to sign a publishing contract. It is important to read the contract carefully and consider what rights it is asking you to give to the publisher and how this will ...
If there is no commercial aspect to the re-use, then permission is not needed?
Usually permission is needed anyway. The content creator may set more permissive conditions if the use is non-commercial, but permission will nevertheless be needed.
But getting permission is difficult!
When selecting material to reuse it’s a good idea to choose material that will be simple to clear for the use you envisage. CLNZ can sometimes assist with one-off transactional licences too.
Isn’t it hard to prove that copyright infringement has occurred?
Not really: copyright law is generally a matter for civil law rather than criminal law. Civil law requires a lower burden of proof—a balance of probabilities rather than proof beyond reasonable doubt—thus making it easier to prove infringement.