ABSTRACT
Because copyright protects the expression of an idea, not the idea itself, the use of information contained within a work is not restricted by copyright, though it may be protected under patent or by non-disclosure agreements. You may therefore express the ideas or describe the information in ways which convey the appropriate message yet avoid copyright infringement. Copyright is infringed if a copyright work is copied, copies issued to the public, the work is performed or shown to the public, the work is broadcast or the work is adapted. In expressing the ideas or information in a new way, producers must be careful to avoid adapting the original work in ways which infringe copyright. For example, it has already been mentioned (Chapter 4) that while a cartoon is protected by copyright, the joke it tells is not and so the same joke may be told by another cartoonist provided that the drawing (the expression of the idea) is not copied or adapted. A diagram of the workings of a water purification system is protected, but unless the system is subject to a patent then the way it works can be described or drawn anew by another person without infringing the copyright of the original author.
