50 Absolutely Must Know Facts About Copyrights

Oxford dictionary inserted a fictitious word “Esquivalience” in order to protect the copyright of the publication. The fake entry was included in dictionary.com.

27. There are prime numbers that are illegal to possess or distribute. One of the first ones, found in 2001, was used to bypass copyright protection on DVDs.

28. John Fogarty was sued by Fantasy Records for copyright infringement because his song (the 1984 hit “The Old Man Down The Road”) sounded too much like CCR’s 1970s hit “Run Through The Jungle”, a song that Fogarty had himself wrote and produced.

29. Bikram Yoga was invented in the 1970s by a man called Bikram Choudhury, who decided to copyright poses developed from those available for free for centuries. He also compares himself to Jesus and sues everyone who tries to "copy" his business.

30. Mr. Rogers testified before the Supreme Court defending the position that home recordings for personal use do not constitute copyright infringement.

Under the Indian Copyright Law, photocopying textbooks for educational purposes is legal.

32. When a French artist is killed during the war, the government has a “died for France” designation which extends their post-mortem copyrights by 30 years.

33. Singer-songwriter Alice Cooper pays yearly royalties to the members of the band, Alice Cooper, for the right to use the name commercially as it was originally the copyrighted band name before he adopted it as his own.

34. Instead of going to court over a copyright infringement dispute, the CEOs of Southwest Airlines and Stevens Aviation challenged each other to an arm wrestling duel via humorous letters. No lawyers were ever involved, and the men honored the outcome of the match.

35. A map-making company in the 1930s placed a made-up hamlet named Agloe (New York) in their maps as a copyright trap. Years later the village started showing up on Rand McNally maps. When the originator of the map sued for copyright infringement, he found out that locals and the government had adopted and used the fictitious name.

Universal Studios, Inc. sued Sony and its distributors in 1976, alleging that because Sony was manufacturing a device (Betamax) that could be used for copyright infringement, they were thus liable for any infringement committed by its purchasers, essentially trying to kill videotape recording.

37. In 2011, a crested black macaque pressed a trigger on a wildlife photographer’s camera, set up in a jungle for that specific purpose. This incident set off an unusual debate about copyright. In 2016, a federal judge ruled that a monkey cannot own the copyright to the images.

38. The 1964 ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer' TV special is in a grey area of copyright due to the fact that the studio mistakenly spelled out the copyright date as 1164 in roman numerals and hasn’t corrected it since.

39. “It’s a Small World” song, which is frequently played at its headline attraction at Disney theme parks is the only Disney song not copyrighted due to the request by UNICEF. The song was played at the 1964 NYC World’s Fair as a salute to UNICEF and is seen as a gift to children around the world.

40. Musopen is a non-profit organization that provides high-quality recordings of classical music in the public domain so that anyone can use them. The project emerged as a response to the big corporations in the music industry that were burying old artists, like Beethoven and Chopin, behind copyright.

As copyrights cannot be infinite, Jack Valenti of the MPAA wanted copyrights extended to “forever less a day.”

42. A Fantastic Four film was created in 1994 solely to secure copyright to the property. The producers never intended it for release, although the director, actors, and other participants were not informed of this fact.

43. Due to a mishap by the distributor, George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” had no copyright protection and instantly fell into the public domain.

44. Greg Ham, the flautist and founding member of the band ‘Men at Work’, died of an overdose following a bout of depression sustained from losing a plagiarism lawsuit from copyright trolls. His crime was using part of the children’s nursery rhyme “Kookaburra” on his solo in the song “Down Under.”

45. Under the US Copyright Office “supernatural beings” cannot hold copyrights so technically if there are real vampires or werewolves out there, they can’t claim royalties for their original content.

Bram Stoker’s widow won a copyright lawsuit against the makers of the German classic film “Nosferatu.” Though the courts ordered all copies of the film burned, one survived hidden and was copied and disseminated, making “Nosferatu” the first cult movie.

47. Disney once prevented a stonemason from engraving ‘Winnie the Pooh’ on a young girl’s gravestone because it would violate Disney’s copyright.

48. As soon as you create something, it is automatically protected under copyright in Australia. You don’t have to register for copyright protection.

49. Sir Ian McKellen and Stephen Fry saved a Southampton pub called “The Hobbit” from having to change its name after being threatened with legal action based on the accusations that the pub was committing copyright infringement.

50. The common practice of adding “All rights reserved” to copyright notices came from a treaty in 1910, but as of 2000 it has become obsolete and is no longer needed.