Creating an Android app is a great challenge for developers. As they have to take care of several things. The app they are going to create must fulfill the wants and needs of the audience. The app must be a complete package of fun, entertainment, and information. So that more and more people find it useful. When people will find something good about your app that is the beginning of the success of your app. Of course, more people will give your app a visit, and when they will find that your app creative then the number of downloads for your app will multiply. In this way, you have a new source of generating revenue. But the thing is that all of this must be your contribution. From an idea of an app to the final steps of its creation. Be it your app’s icon, description, etc. everything must be your creation. Because you see it is no way a difficult thing to go to some website and copy their stuff to your app. Developers sometimes do this and that is why we are going to discuss this issue in our article today. Many Android app developers without giving this step of theirs a thought, copy stuff from different places and use it in their apps. They may do not even consider this act illegal. But this is an illegal act for sure. This article is all about copyright and how can a developer avoid it while creating his app.

What is copyright?

Copyright means the legal right of the owner of any sort of intellectual property. If someone has a copyright that means he is the owner of the original piece of work. That work can be music, article, photograph, game, or a song. Whoever is the copyright owner, has the right to reproduce his work or to give permission to somebody to use his content. Copyright does not protect an idea or concept. For any work to be copyrighted, it has to be in a tangible form.

Now we have provided you with the best definition of copyright. So that when we proceed further you must be clear about what is copyright at first place.

How Can You Avoid Infringing Copyright

1. Create your own content or give credits

Let’s get original with your creation by having your own ideas, material, and content. By writing your own content and by using your own pictures you will not be infringing upon anyone else’s work. With the production of original work, you can claim your copyright on that too. But what if you used someone’s content, pictures, or some other stuff? Many app developers use content from other sources. So what you can do is do not cut and paste beyond fair use and provide links to the original source from where you have taken the content. This will be a nice gesture towards the original owner. And the original author or creator will say Thank You for being honest. All this may also prove to be helpful for your search engine optimization. Even if you are not copying stuff directly from any source and writing and your work is in your own words, still you need to give credits. This is because many ideas and facts are based upon other ideas so it always sounds nice and polite to say “Thanks” to the sources by mentioning them and by giving the links to the original source in your writing. Let’s understand it with the help of an example, you are going to create an app on tricks to surpass all the levels of Candy Crush. This is your idea to create an app on making people learn some tricks through which they can complete all the levels of Candy Crush. But does this Candy Crush game about which you are going to give tricks, your creation? Absolutely not. So here the original creator of the game has the right to be Thankful for and to be credited in your creation. Somewhere in your creation, you should give a link to the original and actual game. This will be a way of giving credit. Also, if the tricks you are going to include in your app are taken from some other source then mention that source and give them credits too.

2. Public Domain

The Internet is a public domain. You need to decipher it more accurately. Because things on the internet are public and can easily be accessed and used by internet users. It does not give you the right to do copyright infringement and doing so cannot be taken as the right thing. Though the internet is widely accepted as a public domain because of its vast audience that does not provide you with the right of violating copyright laws. Internet sits in a public domain but the things shared on it are still protected by copyright. Still, there is a need to ask for permission from the original creator or author before using his work. It is not always the case that upon asking the source or the owner, he will permit you to use their content. Sometimes they don’t allow you, so in that case, you as a good developer needs to respect their privacy and not to share their content.

3. A Fair use

If you are using small pieces of an article, video, or image just to get an idea then this can be viewed as using material within the powers of free speech so that you can get your ideas or views across a target audience. This cannot be seen as replication of material but you are providing a background for something else by using that material. If you are copying the material or you are just taking an idea from some source, you are bound to give links or credits to the owner.

So above mentioned are the ways by which you can avoid copyrighting while developing your app. But things can be another way round as well. Like what if you are the owner of some source material and someone tries to use your stuff. How can you protect your material in that case? The rest of the article will educate you on this.

The threat to content creators is real. But there are certain ways through which owners of copyrighted content can protect their material from being copied. The content creators need to develop some monitoring part of their intellectual property protection programs.

4. Identify and protect your Rights

The bedrock of rights protection program is to secure copyright and where it is possible, registering that copyright in original works. Pictures, videos, writings, etc,  are all protected under national and international copyright conventions. First of all, you need to prepare an inventory of your company’s copyright works. These can be the images or texts of your company or source which are used in marketing. Identify the rights that your company owns and then use the inventory to identify which work you wish to protect and also the work which is more likely to be infringed.

5. Application Licensing programs

The increasing number and popularity of smartphone apps shift from personal computers to tablets and smartphones urges the content creators to develop some licensing program for app developers. By establishing this licensing program, content creators can establish an income-generating scheme. Not only this but by becoming involved in licensing program content creators can establish ways of communication with many application developments and selling services. With the application licensing programs, the content creators also improve their ability to have any complaints regarding copyright violations considered quickly.

6. Monitor Third Party Apps

The most challenging task for original content creators is to uncover the infringers using copyrighted materials. Search engine searches may not be able to identify copyrighted content in smartphones. For this, the content creators and owners need to establish such programs which help in reviewing new applications. They need to review established applications to see that if they are using any infringing material or not.

The increasing popularity and usage of smartphones suggest that this problem of copyright infringement and abuse will continue to grow for sure. By establishing security policy and if content creators use digital tags on their works, they can protect their content. By monitoring the app space for infringements and taking certain steps to remove infringing apps, copyright owners can help to reduce these threats by publicizing their efforts.

Summary

This whole article is about how you can make your content an original one. Even if you copy it from somewhere you should give credits or the links to that source. Google takes copyrights very seriously and it removes such apps that have infringed upon someone’s rights. Not only this, but we have also made you learn that if in future you become a content creator how can you protect your stuff from being used illegally by using different strategies.