Alternative forms of licensing your rights: Copyleft and Creative Commons

In the previous post we mentioned the rights granted by law to the authors in order to entitle them to authorize or prohibit certain uses of their works. In this post we would like to focus on the growing relevance of certain alternative forms of licensing rights, such as copyleft and Creative Commons. Both forms of licensing rights enable the sharing and use of creativity and knowledge through free legal tools. Although this topic would require to be dealt with in further detail in another post, I would just like to point out that both…

How to protect your creations: Be aware of your IP rights

Copyright is defined by the World Intellectual Property Organization (“WIPO”) as the legal term used to describe the rights that creators have over their literary and artistic works. It covers, however, a wide range of works, including books, music, paintings, sculptures and films, but also computer programs, databases, advertisements, maps, and technical drawings. Unlike patents and most of the trademarks, which require a previous registration in order to be legally protected, copyrightable works are automatically protected, with no further formalities, by virtue of the mere fact of its creation, and such protection lasts until 70…