Copyright infringement
Copyright infringement is the use of copyrighted material without the right to do so, whether the use is for profit or not. For electronic media, this is often referred to as piracy.Such rights can be acquired through an explicit contract with the creator; with their publisher; through the normal rights acquired by the purchaser of a work (such as making digital copies for personal use in US law); through fair use or fair dealing provisions of law; through a statutory license, such as video and audio tape or music CDs, but not computer CDs in US law. Many works are not covered by copyright. Examples of the latter are collections of facts or accurate reproductions of works in the public domain in US law; or works whose copyright term has expired. Copyright notices are often not a good indication of whether a use will be infringing; they give some indication of when copyright will expire, who to contact if a permission request is needed and suggest the inabiliy to make uninfringing use of a substantial portion of the complete work if it's still within the copyright term.
For a substantial discussion of copyright infringement in the software domain see copyright infringement of software.
See also