8. Infringement

Abstract

This chapter considers the question of what amounts to copyright infringement, first by discussing ‘primary’ infringement and ‘secondary’ infringement. It then explains the three criteria used to determine whether copyright in a work has been infringed: whether the defendant carried out one of the activities that falls within the copyright owner’s rights; whether there is a causal link between the work used (that is, reproduced, issued, rented, performed, communicated, or adapted) by the defendant and the copyright work; and whether the restricted act has been committed in relation to the work or a substantial part thereof. It also looks at the European approach to finding infringement in relation to authorial works and compares it with the British approach before concluding with a description of non-literal copying of such works.