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  • copyright
    copyright
    noun
    the exclusive right to make copies, license, and otherwise exploit a literary, musical, or artistic work, whether printed, audio, video, etc.: works granted such right by law on or after January 1, 1978, are protected for the lifetime of an author or creator and for a period of 70 years after their death.
  • ©
    ©
    symbol
    copyright
Synonyms

copyright

American  
[kop-ee-rahyt] / ˈkɒp iˌraɪt /

noun

  • copyrights
    plural
  1. the exclusive right to make copies, license, and otherwise exploit a literary, musical, or artistic work, whether printed, audio, video, etc.: works granted such right by law on or after January 1, 1978, are protected for the lifetime of an author or creator and for a period of 70 years after their death.


adjective

  1. of or relating to copyrights.

  2. Also copyrighted. protected by copyright.

verb (used with object)

  • copyrights,
    present (3rd person singular)
  • copyrighted,
    past participle,  past
  • copyrighting
    present participle
  1. to secure a copyright on.

copyright 1 British  
/ ˈkɒpɪˌraɪt /

noun

  1.  (c).  the exclusive right to produce copies and to control an original literary, musical, or artistic work, granted by law for a specified number of years (in Britain, usually 70 years from the death of the author, composer, etc, or from the date of publication if later)

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

adjective

  1. (of a work, etc) subject to or controlled by copyright

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

verb

  1. (tr) to take out a copyright on

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
© 2 British  

symbol

  1. copyright

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

copyright 1 Cultural  
  1. The legal protection given to published works, forbidding anyone but the author from publishing or selling them. An author can transfer the copyright to another person or corporation, such as a publishing company.


copyright 2 Cultural  
  1. A grant of an exclusive right to produce or sell a book, motion picture, work of art, musical composition, software, or similar product during a specified period of time.


Discover More

The symbol (see also symbol) for copyright is ©.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

Inflected Forms

Nouns

Participles

Conjugated Forms

Present

Past

Future

Etymology

Origin of copyright

First recorded in 1725–35; copy + right

Explanation

A copyright is a document that gives the ownership rights over artistic work, like songs or stories. If you don't get a copyright for your brilliant new novel, someone could adapt it into a movie without paying you a dime. Copyright means exactly what it sounds like: the right to make copies of something. If you copyright a song, a singer will to have to pay you to record it. Usually, copyright only lasts for a certain number of years. In the U.S. when a book or song has had a copyright for more than 75 years, that expires and it becomes "public domain," which means nobody owns the rights to it anymore.

Keep Reading on Vocabulary.com

Vocabulary lists containing copyright

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

"The starting point in the UK is that all these acts of copying - creating the training library and doing the training – require the permission of the copyright owner," she says.

From BBC Aug. 15, 2026

Fans like to use clips from films and TV shows in their videos, but without express permission, they would often be taken down due to copyright claims.

From BBC Aug. 5, 2026

The proposed guidelines unveiled Wednesday say that AI music would qualify for the charts if the AI service used to create it is “properly authorized and lawful” and if it doesn’t violate any copyright laws.

From Los Angeles Times Jul. 30, 2026

Google's wildly popular NotebookLM -- recently rebranded as Gemini Notebook -- doesn't screen for copyright either, and neither does BookWorm AI, a ChatGPT-based tool that calls itself a "book companion."

From Barron's Jul. 27, 2026

Agloe, New York, is a fictitious village created by the Esso company in the early 1930s and inserted into tourist maps as a copyright trap, or paper town.

From "Paper Towns" by John Green

And celebrities with valuable intellectual property rights, such as copyrights from the Reiners’ many film and television properties, tend to establish trusts.

From Salon Dec. 25, 2025

Now they sell AI-created images with the guarantee that these don’t infringe copyrights.

From The Wall Street Journal Dec. 15, 2025

The deal comes amid reports Disney lawyers sent Google a cease-and-desist letter on Wednesday accusing the tech firm of infringing its copyrights "on a massive scale".

From BBC Dec. 11, 2025

They alleged that Cox’s subscribers infringed their copyrights in sound recordings and musical compositions by copying and distributing them via BitTorrent and other networks.

From Slate Nov. 28, 2025

But when Fabyan printed the pamphlets, he claimed the copyrights for himself.

From "The Woman All Spies Fear" by Amy Butler Greenfield

What constitutes “fair use” of copyrighted works for training an AI model remains contentious.

From Los Angeles Times Jul. 23, 2026

Keep in mind that sharing copyrighted material violates U.S. law.

From Salon Jun. 10, 2026

But critics have raised concerns about whether AI systems are trained on copyrighted works without permission or payment to artists.

From Los Angeles Times Jun. 8, 2026

He has also proposed legislation to make tech companies pay for the electricity needed to run data centers and disclose the copyrighted work used to train their models.

From The Wall Street Journal Jun. 8, 2026

It was copyrighted 1972 by the Esso company.

From "Paper Towns" by John Green

The nonprofit recently trademarked its name and is in the process of copyrighting its livestream.

From Los Angeles Times May 2, 2026

She said she had been running her own copyrighting business, but found herself struggling while devoting thousands of hours getting ready for her legal fight.

From BBC May 10, 2023

Its widespread use has been facilitated by Kruger’s disinterest in copyrighting her work.

From New York Times Jul. 14, 2022

Senior manager of LHI Sonia Mora said the county is in the process of copyrighting Abuelina and her family members to ensure they are not used for commercial purposes.

From Washington Post Aug. 8, 2021

But the copyrighting of a photograph of an uncopyrighted subject cannot prevent the photographing of the same subject independently by others, nor can the use of a "general idea" be prevented.

From Copyright: Its History and Its Law by Richard Rogers Bowker

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