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The most general definition of copyright is literally "the right to copy" an original creation. Copyright law is a set of exclusive rights securing legal protection of the ownership of a publication or another type of intellectual property, such as a web site or a blog. The symbol for copyright is , but there are as well alternative symbols, written as (c) or (C), having the same meaning.

When an author writes and publishes a book and signs a contract with a publisher, he normally agrees to relinquish all rights to the work until a certain condition is met. This condition can be a length of time, in which case the author will starts to earn royalties after his book has been in print for a certain number of months, or a price, which would be the total royalties that the book must earn before the author start getting paid. This price is normally a publishing advance, so when the book has made more than the advance, the author starts earning royalties.

Copyright may subsist in a wide range of creative, intellectual, or artistic forms or "works". When a work (a book, a web site or a blog) is published, the author (or the owner) of the that work automatically establishes ownership of that content, whether he signs a contract or not. But copyright law covers only the form or manner in which ideas or information have been manifested, the "form of material expression" and it is not designed to cover the actual idea, concepts or facts which may be embodied in or represented by the copyright work.

Copyright laws are standardized through international conventions and can be extremely complicated, with many different clauses and conditions. A copyright, or aspects of it, may be assigned or transferred from one party to another. Copyright may also be licensed. Some jurisdictions may provide that certain classes of copyrighted works be made available under a prescribed statutory license.

The standard copyright for any work is the life of the author plus either 50 or 70 years. Once this time is over, the copyright of the publication could fall into the hands of any number of entities, usually into the public domain, if there is no special clause in the contract stipulating otherwise.

Generally, there are two different types of copyright established for a publication: The first is the copyright in the literary work itself, which has the duration of the life of the author plus 50 or 70 years. The second is the copyright in the format (or the layout) of the publication. According to copyright law the content remains the authors' intellectual property for either 50 or 70 years after that specific publication, so if the same work sees a new edition a century after its first publication, the author will still own this copyright.

The author is a regular writer for Articleated.com and webmaster at Good Time Watches, a site that carry watches and ALLdigitALL Computers & Electronics, a computer and consumer electronics oriented site.