The rules surrounding copyright are very interesting and at the same time, very dangerous. Especially as you may not know what photos are copyrighted and which photos are not when you copy an image from Google Images (as I'm sure many of us have done before!)
Intellectual property rights
This covers any work covered by a license e.g. music and films. The rules on theft of physical property are basically the same with intellectual property e.g. if you illegally download a film online, it is the same as stealing a DVD from a shop because what you are in effect buying, is the license - not the DVD itself.
If someone else wants to use a song that you have put into the public domain (and it's on sale) and someone puts on a website where others can download it for free, then whoever downloads it from the illegal website - then they're in breach of copyright as well as the person who uploaded the song to the website. Major music file sharing websites such as Limewire and Napster are in breach of copyright laws. However, they can buy the rights to the song off of you and by doing so, they are able to do whatever they want with the song.
In journalism, you license your work in return for payment, this works in 3 ways:
1: If you are employed by a newspaper or a broadcaster, it is usually in your contract that you surrender your work and as a result, your employer can exploit your work in any way they want.
2: As a journalist, you can negotiate a new contract which gives you some rights to the money generated from your employer using the work. Your employer will probably pay you less salary, but you will still own the rights to your work (meaning that if you also do freelance work, you can license you work out to another newspaper).
3: 'Rip off'. This phrase originates in the 1960s when groups like The Who signed total buy-out contracts on a pad. They were then able to record songs for wages, the record company then made millions of pounds without giving any of the money to The Who. The Who then litigated in the 1980s to get back some of the money. The phrase 'rip off' comes from the paper contract being ripped off the pad!
Fair dealing/'lifting'
There is no copyright involved with the facts in a news story, however the speech, pictures and videos are covered by copyright. When reporting the football results, the actual results are not copyright but an interview with someone about the results, then this is covered because it belongs to the broadcaster.
But, you can 'lift' a short soundbite from a story/interview (as long as you credit it and don't try and 'pass it off' as your own.
Summary:
What does copyright protect?:
Literature (inc. journalism, PC programmes and leaflets), drama, music and photography.
Copyright lasts for 70 years for films, artistic works and music scores. Copyright for sound recordings and broadcasting lasts for 50 years. As Chris pointed out today, some of Cliff Richard's work is not covered by copyright anymore!
Copyright doesn't cover ideas
If I have the best idea in the world and someone copies that idea, then I can't 'do them' for breaching copyright.
The statutory rules:
These are some of the copyright rules from the statute: It is an offence to perform any of the following acts without the consent of the owner:
Copy the work.
Rent, lend or issue copies of the work to the public.
Perform, broadcast or show the work in public.
Adapt the work.
These are some of the rules about fair dealing from the statute: You can use copyrighted materials only in the following ways:
Private and research study purposes.
Performance, copies or lending for educational purposes.
Criticism and news reporting.
Incidental inclusion
Creative Commons: This is a movement that makes some material free from full copyright, an advanced search on image sharing website Flickr reveals some images that have no permission to use attached to them. Usually, license holders of CC images require for them to be credited when the image is used.
TB 2011
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