copyright is not always the same.  Take a work of art,
such as The Haywain by John Constable.  Due to its age,
for the purposes of our discussion, we will assume that
the painting's copyright resides in the Public Domain.
Suppose that I went along to the gallery where it hangs
and obtained permission to take a photograph of the
picture using an ordinary film camera.  The resulting
photograph is then copyright protected under my name.  As
a result, I have control over its use.  But the copyright
of the original painting remains in the Public Domain.

This same principle applies to any other copyright work as
soon as it passes into the Public Domain.  This is one
reason why classical music is used so widely in TV
advertisements.  Obviously, the resultant recording is
then under copyright, but the original work is not.  You
will have to wait a while longer before any modern pop
songs pass into the Public Domain.  It should be noted
that one perennial song, Happy Birthday, remains under
copyright until the year 2010, after which it will pass
into the Public Domain!


What is protected under copyright?

Virtually anything which exists in physical form: text,