Welcome to the MySpace Copyright Education Program.

Welcome to the MySpace Copyright Education Program.You are participating in this program because you may have uploaded material to which someone else has claimed a copyright. MySpace does not permit you to upload or display copyrighted content owned by someone else without permission from the copyright owner. This Program will help explain what it means to own a copyright under U.S. law and the law of most other countries and what content you are permitted to upload to MySpace under MySpace's Terms and Conditions. Upon completion of this program your upload privileges will be restored and you may continue to use MySpace in accordance with the Terms and Conditions.

What is a "copyright"? A copyright is a legal right that protects creative content like movies, TV shows, books, sound recordings, music videos, photographs, published articles and other artistic works. The point of copyright law is to encourage the development of new creative content by giving the original creator certain exclusive rights to use the content. .

Who is the copyright owner? The person who creates the content typically owns the copyright to start with. The copyright owner can give someone else permission to use the content and can even sell the copyright to someone else.

What rights does a copyright owner have? Only the copyright owner can copy, upload, display, distribute, publicly perform, and sell his or her content.

Do I own any copyrights? If you create wholly original content, you would own a copyright in that content. For example, if you write and record a brand new song, make a home video, write a poem, or take a photograph, you would own the copyright in all that content. In general, you may post to MySpace original content that you create because you are the copyright owner.

If I purchase a copy of a copyrighted work, do I own the copyright? No. There is a difference between owning a physical copy of a copyrighted work and owning the copyright. If you buy a music CD, you own that copy of the CD, but you do not own the copyright to the songs on that CD. You may not post the songs to MySpace because you are not the copyright owner of the songs.

Click here to take the copyright quiz..