LimeTouch

Lorelle challenges us to blog about a symbol’s history and meaning with the help of the online symbol encyclopedia which currently hosts about 2,500 entries. She leaves it to us on what we want to relate this symbol to, it could be something to do with your blog or something personal, there are no bounds. I just love the flexibility in her blog challenges in which we are able to express ourselves.

The copyright may not be one of my favorite symbols graphically, but it is one which plays a huge significance to me as an author and is something which I in an indirect way or another, come in touch with everyday.

The history of copyright traces all the way back to the 17th century in Britain. Just very briefly, if it wasn’t for the publisher’s monopoly in which the real authors suffered, we would not have seen the birth of the first copyright act - Statute of Ann in 1709 and its evolvement till today. Rules are made because someone gained an unfair benefit through exploiting loopholes, and copyright laws just like many others out there were born along those lines. Do take note that copyright laws vary from country to country.

The whole purpose of the copyright law is to protect the author’s works from being copied by another to sell. Try imagining a situation in which an author taking a few months of hard work to make a break through in developing an innovative idea of a software. It would make perfect sense if he were to copyright his work in order to protect it.

During my poly days FYP (Final Year Project), we came up with a mobile application project - Community Calendaring which won the 4th best consumer application at the Splash! Award 2006.

The functionality of the user interface was programmed by us. Remember the all so familiar calendar on your mobile? It took me more than 1000 lines of code to create our own custom calendar, one which is fully suited to our application needs. And it would be something which I personally would copyright if the project didn’t belong to Singapore Polytechnic.

Credit should be given where it is due. That is what I stand up for. I do not wish to see my work being stolen by others and then used to make a quick buck. With that being said, after some clarifications from Lorelle, if you would like to use my content under any circumstances, I would appreciate it if you drop me an email.