Anomalies in Copyright Law

The word copyright is a misnomer. The law of copyright is based on the encouragement of motive. Plagiarism is not necessarily copyright infringement and copyright infringement is not necessarily plagiarism. Copyright law is concerned, in essence, with the negative right of preventing the copying of physical material. Copyright is not a monopoly, unlike patent and registered design. Thus, if it can be shown that two precisely similar works were in fact produced wholly independently of one another, there can be no infringement of copyright by one or the other. Substantial similarity leading to copyright infringement is a grey area in copyright law. As per copyright law principles, making a digital copy itself is copyright infringement, no matter what amount of work is accessible to users. If a compilation work satisfies the originality criteria, that is ‘creativity’, then it will be protected. There is no copyright in facts per se, but original expression of factual compilation can have copyright protection.