411 for Creatives
Copyright
the exclusive legal right, given to an originator or an assignee to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material, and to authorize others to do the same.
Creative Commons
are not an alternative to copyright. They work alongside copyright and enable you to modify your copyright terms to best suit your needs.
Creative Work
is a manifestation of creative effort including but not limited to artwork, literature, music, and paintings. Creative works have in common a degree of arbitrariness, such that it is improbable that two people would independently create the same work.
License
a permit from an authority to own or use something, do a particular thing, or carry on a trade
Plagiarize
take (the work or an idea of someone else) and pass it off as one's own.
Piracy
the practice of attacking and robbing ships at sea
Public Domain
the state of belonging or being available to the public as a whole, and therefore not subject to copyright.
Fair Use
(in US copyright law) the doctrine that brief excerpts of copyright material may, under certain circumstances, be quoted verbatim for purposes such as criticism, news reporting, teaching, and research, without the need for permission from or payment to the copyright holder.