Copyright is a legal protection granted to the creators of original literary, artistic, musical and other creative works. 

Copyright is one of the most significant legal rights an author or visual artist has, as it lets them decide how their work will be used and distributed. This is super important as it means creators are in control of commercialising their work.

Copyright law provides creators with a set of exclusive rights to copy, publish, publicly perform, distribute and adapt their material. These are all set out in the Copyright Act 1994, which means the rights are protected in legislation. We go into more detail about these rights in the article “ What are the Rights Visual Artists and Authors have in their Work ?” 

But there are some exceptions to these rights: in some cases the law allows others to use copyright works without getting the copyright owner’s permission. This might be for educational purposes, or in news reporting, but there’s lots of grey areas too. These exceptions are explored more in the article “ Exceptions to Copyright ” and “ Fair Dealing .”