Our media-saturated world has made copyrighted works increasingly valuable assets due to the large markets to buy or licence the rights attached to them.

In Bermuda, the relevant legislation is the Copyright and Designs Act 2004, which became operative in early 2008.

This legislation closely mirrors that of the United Kingdom and is consistent with global trends in relation to copyright protection.

A photograph, musical score, computer programme, short story, database etc., are all forms of intellectual property that can be owned in a similar fashion to the way that a watch or a car can be owned – and this is true around the world.

In the case of copyright ownership, the rights attached to such works are owned – and those rights can be sold or licensed.

Copyright is a simple form of legal protection because it subsists in a work as soon as the work is created in a fixed form – written down or recorded, for example.

Works do not need to be registered or filed with a government agency. Protection does not cost anything and the value of each work is contained in what you are allowed to 'do' with it.

This article, as an original literary work, once it was written, was protected under Bermuda's copyright legislation.

Normally, as the author I would have exclusive rights to do all things with the work I created and could therefore licence others to do any of those things. In this case, however, as I wrote this article in the course of my employment with Appleby, it is the firm that owns the exclusive rights. The firm has licensed The Royal Gazette to print the column.

This article may not create much interest from outside parties who may want to buy or licence the rights attached to it, and therefore it likely has little monetary value.

However, that does not mean that copyright does not subsist in it. A copyright owner has the exclusive rights attached to a work, regardless of the monetary value it may have, and this makes copyright a very powerful protection. One has only to consider the value that novels and screenplays have in the film industry. A Bermudian screenwriter may have a great idea for a new vampire movie, and write the perfect script.

As an independent, he would try to arrange meetings with various production companies to see if there is any interest. The screenwriter is the author and owner of the rights in the work he has created but the production company has the money required to make it into a blockbuster.

In most cases the production company, if its executives like the screenplay, will offer to purchase all the rights attached to it, perhaps for a defined period of time, and sometimes in perpetuity.

The screenwriter can agree to sell those rights – or, in cases where he is the author of a novel, he may keep the rights associated with the novel but licence the production company to create a screenplay and therefore licence the film rights.

Production companies keep vast numbers of screenplays and scripts on the shelves and when there is a general popularity for vampire films, as is the case now, they can do as they wish with them since they are assets that they own, or have licensed.

The rights associated with protected works in the music and film industries have always been recognised as intrinsically valuable – but as digital copies of those works are now widely generated and easily accessible and there is more opportunity to break the law in relation to copyright infringement, it is no surprise that the owners of protected works are pushing for enforcement of such laws.

Indeed, one only has to look at the news reported on the website CNN.com, from Minnesota earlier this month where Jammie Thomas-Rasset was found liable for US $1.9 million in damages for downloading 24 songs from the Internet ($80,000 per song).

The songs, as works in which copyright subsists, are protected from non-owners infringing on the rights of the song's owners and in this civil case (for the second time) the music industry went to a full federal trial to emphasise that point.

Compared to the $80,000 per song damages that have been awarded, $0.99 a song in the iTunes shop sounds like a bargain!

Attorney Adrian Beasley is a member of the Corporate and Commercial Practice Group at Appleby. A copy of Mr. Beasley's column can be obtained on the Appleby website at www.applebyglobal.com. This column should not be used as a substitute for professional legal advice. Before proceeding with any matters discussed here, persons are advised to consult with a lawyer.