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- 18 - CHAPTER 2 Do one or both of these justifications resonate with you? What other reasons do you believe support or don’t support the granting of exclusive rights to the creators of original works?

Drawing on the author’s rights tradition, most countries also have moral rights that protect, sometimes indefinitely, the bond between authors and their creative output. Moral rights are distinct from the rights granted to copyright holders to restrict others from economically exploiting their works, but they are closely connected.

The two most common types of moral rights are the right to be recognized as the author of the work (known traditionally as the “right of paternity”) and the right to protect the work’s integrity (generally, the right to object to distortion of or the introduction of undesired changes to the work).

Not all countries have moral rights, but in some parts of the world they are considered so integral that they cannot be licensed away or waived by creators, and they last indefinitely.

Copyright applies to works of original authorship, which means works that are unique and not a copy of someone else’s work, and most of the time this requires the works’ fixation in a tangible medium (written down, recorded, saved to your computer, etc.).

Copyright law establishes the basic terms of use that apply automatically to these original works. These terms give the creator or owner of copyright certain exclusive rights, while also recognizing that users have certain rights to use these works without the need for a license or permission.

What’s copyrightable?

In countries that have signed on to the major copyright treaties described in more detail in, copyright exists in the following general categories of works, though sometimes special rules apply on a country-by-country basis. A specific country’s copyright laws almost always further specify different

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