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US copyright law U.S. Copyright Law Covers Artistic Expression and Creative and Intellectual Works The US Copyright Law grants rights to individuals for the works they create. The US Copyright Act of 1790 has changed over the years. The current basis of US copyright law is based on the Copyright Act of 1976. US copyright law is relatively automatic. Once someone has an idea and produces it in tangible form, the creator is the copyright holder and has the authority to enforce his exclusivity to it. In other words, the person is the owner of the creation. It is not necessary that a person register their work. However, it is recommended and it can serve as evidence if someone ever violates a copyright. It is interesting to note that when an employer hires an employee to produce a work that the copyright is given to the employer. Violations of US Copyright Law are generally enforced in a civil court setting. However, there could also be criminal sanctions brought against someone who violates US copyright law. Someone that is in serious violation of US Copyright Law such as counterfeiting can find themselves on the inside of prison looking out. People need to understand that the copyright symbol is not a requirement. Someone may have a copyright, yet their work may not have a copyright notice or symbol. US Copyright Law covers a wide range of things that are derived from artistic expression, intellectual or creative work. This includes things such as literary works, music, drawings, photographs, software, movies, choreographic works such as ballets and plays, poems, paintings and more. The law covers the form of expression, not the concept, facts or the actual idea of the work. This means that someone can use another person’s idea or concept and produce their own take on it. However, copying another person’s work is a violation. It should be noted that some things may not be copyrighted but they may be protected by a patent or trademark. Individuals who have a copyright on a particular piece of work can do with it what they will. They may choose to copy it and sell it. They may display their work or perform it in public and charge admission, or they can assign or sell the work to someone else. Individuals who have a copyright can also choose to do nothing with their work, if that is their desire. However, if someone comes along and takes the work and tries to use it in some way, that person is still in violation of the owner’s copyright. Copyrights cover published and unpublished work. Anyone who is in the creative arts arena should be very careful that they do not violate US Copyright Law. For that matter, anyone who is a fan of the creative arts should make sure they are not in violation of a copyright. Simple things like uploading, downloading and sharing music or movie files can result in serious charges and fines being brought against them. With the popularity of the Internet and file sharing software there many copyrights are currently being violated. Copyright owners are starting to take a stand against them and are hunting down the perpetrators. Be careful that you are not overstepping your boundaries and violating someone’s copyright law.

Communication Key to a Better Work Environment Everyone knows the story of A Christmas Carole. On Christmas Eve, poor Bob Cratchit, who is working late again, spends his day working up the courage to ask his boss, Mr. Scrooge, if he can have Christmas Day off from work to spend with his family. When he finally does get up the nerve to ask, Mr. Scrooge lets forth a tirade over lazy people using Christmas as an excuse to have a day a off from work. This fictional story unfortunately rings true for a lot of people who have to work up the courage to ask for things from their employers. An employee who has to feel about their employer the way Bob Cratchit felt about Mr. Scrooge is not a very happy and productive employee. To get the most of out of your workers, you have to create a much more hospitable working environment. To create a better working environment, keeping the lines of communication open is absolutely crucial. How does communication work in your office? Do you get the impression that everyone is walking around on eggshells around you? While this kind of fear from your employees may be good for your ego in some senses, it is really bad for your business. When your employees don’t feel like they can talk to you, you will lose control over what is going on with your business. You may be the boss, but your employees are the ones who are actually on the front lines. To know what is really going on out there, you need your employees to communicate honestly with you. If they feel that you are unapproachable, they will hide problems and concerns from you, and you won’t be able to act to fix them. You can’t expect to run your business with half of the information about what is actually going on, and so your business will suffer for your “mean boss” routine. There are still other problems with creating an office environment in which your employees feel like you are unapproachable. In general, there will be a dark cloud over the office when you are around. The stress will keep employee morale low, and employees with low morale are employees with low productivity. Besides, who wants to work hard for someone they cannot approach or who doesn’t show they any respect? Shutting down those lines of communication will definitely affect your bottom line as employees “phone it in” because they don’t feel invested in making your business a success. If you want a better working environment, you have to improve the lines of communication. If there has been a communication breakdown in the past, take the time to address it with your staff. If you staff is small, talk to them each one on one, letting them know that your door is always open and that you want more regular communication with them. If you have a larger staff, schedule a meeting to address the issue. Weekly office meetings are a great way to keep communication channels open and swap ideas in the office environment. If weekly meetings are not feasible, find some way of touching base with your staff on a regular basis, either through weekly emails or a weekly newsletter. Also, you should encourage your staff to communicate with each other. Sharing information among the staff is a great way to generate fresh ideas and fresh approaches to problems. If your office is suffering from a communication problem, make nipping it in the bud a priority. The pay off will be more productive workers and a whole lot less stress. Who knew work could actually be a pleasant place to be?

Got Java on the Brain? Get Free Coffee Products! There are many wonderful web pages on the Internet that help their users and visitors to free products. Some of the pages hold links to free samples; others offer coupons and advice on how to get free products. If it is Java that is on ones mind and one is looking for free coffee products, there might just the right web page on the Internet for that. Finding pages that offer free java, is as easy as drinking a cup of coffee. Internet savvy persons just need to enter the words free coffee into any of the Internet search engines and a variety of great pages will pop up on the search screen. Coffee pages offer samples, links to samples, coupons and more on their sites. Any coffee lover has the chance to try a great variety of new and fancy coffees. The Internet pages that offer free coffee samples are updated frequently, so that links should not be outdated and new products are listed as soon as they appear on the market. As with so many pages on the Internet, these web sites rely on their users to help out with new sample tips, coupon tips and promotion dates. Users are asked to contact the web page master whenever there is a link that is not working, so that that link can be fixed or removed. Users are also encouraged to send in any data about free samples, links to company pages that offer free coffee and even links to coupons and deals that are unbeatable. Since free coffee is sometimes hard to get too and there are only that many free samples that coffee lovers can get a hold of, many of the free coffee sites also offer other great free deals and links to coupons and samples, so that it is anyways a good idea to visit the free coffee sites. For coffee lovers it is also important to check out their local coffee stores. Many of the stores have promotions, such as an advertisement campaign, where free coffee in connection with other products might be available. Just recently one of the major coffee chains had an ongoing promotion, where coffee lovers bought their friends a coup of coffee and they themselves received their drink of equal or lesser value for free. This might have been a way of the company to lure m ore new customers, but in the end it meant a free coffee for one of the two friends. Sometimes it is a promotion at one of the local festivals, where coupons and vouchers for free coffees are handed out. How about a free coffee with breakfast? Some of the major breakfast places offer a free complimentary coffee, when a breakfast or a breakfast sandwich is bought. For the person that every once in a while or maybe even every morning gets a breakfast sandwich, a bagel or a doughnut at one of the many restaurants this is a good deal. By the way, if coffee is not the desired morning drink, but rather teas, the websites and coffee shops also offer free tea and free tea samples. Even though it is more rare, the pages also offer samples for hot chocolate and new chocolate drink creations that can replace coffee or tea for the ones who rather like it sweet and chocolaty with their breakfast. Whichever one if desired, it is well worth checking out the Internet pages online that offer free samples. Free samples are the way for the customer to try without buying. After all, no one would buy a car before it was not test-driven, so here is the chance to test-drink coffees and more.