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Attribution, in copyright law, is acknowledgment as credit to the copyright holder or author of a work. If a work is under copyright, there is a long tradition of the author requiring attribution while directly quoting portions of work created by that author.
An author may formally require attribution required via a
Attribution, in copyright law, is acknowledgment as credit to the copyright holder or author of a work. If a work is under copyright, there is a long tradition of the author requiring attribution while directly quoting portions of work created by that author.
An author may formally require attribution required via a license
A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit).
A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...
, legally preventing others from claiming to have written the work and allowing a copyright holder to retain reputational benefits from having written it. In cases when the copyright holder is the author themselves, this behavior is often moralized as a sign of decency and respect to acknowledge the creator by giving them credit for the work.
This said, a work in the public domain
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired ...
, which is any not covered by copyright, has no such attribution requirement in most parts of the world. This is the distinguishing factor between plagiarism
Plagiarism is the fraudulent representation of another person's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work.From the 1995 '' Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary'': use or close imitation of the language and though ...
, which is not a crime, but an unethical act, and copyright infringement
Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, ...
, which may be a cause of legal action from the author.
Copyright holder attribution
The most fundamental form of attribution is the statement of the copyright holder's identity, often in the form ''Copyright © ear opyright holder’s name'. The preservation of such a notice was an invariable requirement to prevent a work entering the public domain; this changed in the United States on March 1, 1989 when the requirement of copyright registration and copyright signment was ended. Copyright holder attribution is in most countries in the world not required, due toBerne convention
The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, usually known as the Berne Convention, was an international assembly held in 1886 in the Swiss city of Bern by ten European countries with the goal to agree on a set of leg ...
.
See also
*Acknowledgment (creative arts)
In the creative arts and scientific literature, an acknowledgement (also spelled acknowledgment in American and Canadian English) is an expression of a gratitude for assistance in creating an original work.
Receiving credit by way of acknowledg ...
* Creative Commons license
A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work".A "work" is any creative material made by a person. A painting, a graphic, a book, a song/lyric ...
* Credit (creative arts)
In general, the term credit in the artistic or intellectual sense refers to an acknowledgment of those who contributed to a work, whether through ideas or in a more direct sense.
Credit in the arts
In the creative arts, credits are an acknowledg ...
* Byline
The byline (or by-line in British English) on a newspaper or magazine article gives the name of the writer of the article. Bylines are commonly placed between the headline and the text of the article, although some magazines (notably '' Reader' ...
* Signature block
A signature block (often abbreviated as signature, sig block, sig file, .sig, dot sig, siggy, or just sig) is a personalized block of text automatically appended at the bottom of an email message, Usenet article, or forum post.
Email and Usenet ...
References
Copyright law {{Law-term-stub