The idea of enacting a copyright law was first developed to encourage creativity and further grew on that sole purpose and protecting companies’ and individuals’ right to ownership. Such protections of copyright is expressed by giving the author or the owner of copyrightable works the exclusive right of reproduction, sale, rent, transfer, and other communication of the work to the public.
According to David Bainbridge, a well-known writer on Intellectual Property, copyright means an intangible, incorporeal property right granted by the law to the owner of the specified types of literary and artistic works such as films and sound recordings. Furthermore, copyright protection subsists in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression. In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, and system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery.
One important feature of copyright law is that it does not protect ideas, rather protects the expression of an idea.
However, protecting the interest of the owner of the copyrightable work is not the only purpose of the copyright law. Copyright law has to also take in to account the interest of the society at large.
The protection given by the law to the owner of the copyright, in recognition of the time and effort taken to create the work, ensures a fair balance between the needs of the copyright user and the rights of the copyright owner. People need to be able to copy materials produced by others, but if there were no limits in place, the owners of the copyright material would not be remunerated for their work, and there would be no incentive to create further work.