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copyright
copyrightnounthe 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.
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©
©symbolcopyright
copyright
Americannoun
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copyrights
plural
adjective
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of or relating to copyrights.
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Also copyrighted. protected by copyright.
verb (used with object)
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copyrights,
present (3rd person singular)
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copyrighted,
past participle, past
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copyrighting
present participle
noun
adjective
verb
symbol
Discover More
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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copyrightsimple
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copyrightssimple
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have copyrightedperfect
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has copyrightedperfect
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am copyrightingprogressive
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are copyrightingprogressive
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is copyrightingprogressive
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have been copyrightingperfect progressive
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has been copyrightingperfect progressive
Past
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copyrightedsimple
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had copyrightedperfect
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was copyrightingprogressive
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were copyrightingprogressive
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had been copyrightingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of copyright
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.
Vocabulary lists containing copyright
Computer Science and Technology - Middle School
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Computer Science and Technology - High School
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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
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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
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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
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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
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.