Copyright

Copyright is not as modern a concept as people may think. It is designed to prevent theft of original ideas and make more easily established the legal owner of an idea. It refers to the creations of your mind. Inventions, literary and artistic works, symbols, names, images and designs used for commercial purposes are covered under copyright, just as films, games, photos, designs for more abstract things such as fashion, and is even inclusive to food recipes.


Patents, trademarks, registered designs and copyright all categorise under intellectual property. The first patent taken out was for a Typewriter in England, including a QWERTY keyboard. This patent was taken as early as 1714. 


Logos such as the Apple logo, the Nike tick are instantly recognisable and protected under intellectual property rights to prevent other people from using their logo as a Nike product when it is in fact not.


Copyright that is breached is copyright infringement, and there are often legal battles between companies regarding material that each company may believe to be theirs. A recent example of this is Steam and Blizzard's claims to the name DOTA.

During the game's unveiling at Gamescom 2011, Gabe Newell explained Valve's perspective on acquring the trademark, which was that IceFrog desired to develop a direct sequel to DotA and that players would likely recognize it as such. Blizzard filed an opposition against Valve in November 2011, citing the Warcraft III World Editor and their ownership of DotA-Allstars, LLC as a proper claim on the franchise. On May 11, 2012, Blizzard and Valve announced that the dispute had been settled, with Valve retaining the rights to the term "Dota", while Blizzard would change the name of their map, Blizzard DOTA, to "Blizzard All-stars".

Breaches of copyright occur across the world. Another example in China is that of 'Obama Fried Chicken'.