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Copyright

A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives the creator of an original work, or another right holder, the exclusive and legally secured right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educational, or musical form. Copyright is intended to protect the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself. A copyright is subject to limitations based on public interest considerations, such as the fair use doctrine in the United States.

Some jurisdictions require "fixing" copyrighted works in a tangible form. It is often shared among multiple authors, each of whom holds a set of rights to use or license the work, and who are commonly referred to as rights holders. These rights normally include reproduction, control over derivative works, distribution, public performance, and moral rights such as attribution.

Copyrights can be granted by public law and are in that case considered "territorial rights". This means that copyrights granted by the law of a certain state do not extend beyond the territory of that specific jurisdiction. Copyrights of this type vary by country; many countries, and sometimes a large group of countries, have made agreements with other countries on procedures applicable when works "cross" national borders or national rights are inconsistent.

Typically, the public law duration of a copyright expires 50 to 100 years after the creator dies, depending on the jurisdiction. Some countries require certain copyright formalities to establishing copyright, others recognize copyright in any completed work, without a formal registration. When the copyright of a work expires, it enters the public domain.

Background
The concept of copyright developed after the printing press came into use in Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries. It was associated with a common law and rooted in the civil law system. The printing press made it much cheaper to produce works, but as there was initially no copyright law, anyone could buy or rent a press and print any text.

Popular new works were immediately re-set and re-published by competitors, so printers needed a constant stream of new material. Fees paid to authors for new works were high, and significantly supplemented the incomes of many academics.

Printing brought profound social changes. The rise in literacy across Europe led to a dramatic increase in the demand for reading matter. Prices of reprints were low, so publications could be bought by poorer people, creating a mass audience. In German-language markets before the advent of copyright, technical materials, like popular fiction, were inexpensive and widely available; it has been suggested this contributed to Germany's industrial and economic success.

Conception
The concept of copyright first developed in England. In reaction to the printing of "scandalous books and pamphlets", the English Parliament passed the Licensing of the Press Act 1662, which required all intended publications to be registered with the government-approved Stationers' Company, giving the Stationers the right to regulate what material could be printed.

The Statute of Anne, enacted in 1710 in England and Scotland, provided the first legislation to protect copyrights (but not authors' rights). The Copyright Act of 1814 extended more rights for authors but did not protect British from reprinting in the US. The Berne International Copyright Convention of 1886 finally provided protection for authors among the countries who signed the agreement, although the US did not join the Berne Convention until 1989.

In the US, the Constitution grants Congress the right to establish copyright and patent laws. Shortly after the Constitution was passed, Congress enacted the Copyright Act of 1790, modeling it after the Statute of Anne. While the national law protected authors' published works, authority was granted to the states to protect authors' unpublished works. The most recent major overhaul of copyright in the US, the 1976 Copyright Act, extended federal copyright to works as soon as they are created and "fixed", without requiring publication or registration. State law continues to apply to unpublished works that are not otherwise copyrighted by federal law. This act also changed the calculation of copyright term from a fixed term (then a maximum of fifty-six years) to "life of the author plus 50 years". These changes brought the US closer to conformity with the Berne Convention, and in 1989 the United States further revised its copyright law and joined the Berne Convention officially.

Copyright laws allow products of creative human activities, such as literary and artistic production, to be preferentially exploited and thus incentivized. Different cultural attitudes, social organizations, economic models and legal frameworks are seen to account for why copyright emerged in Europe and not, for example, in Asia. In the Middle Ages in Europe, there was generally a lack of any concept of literary property due to the general relations of production, the specific organization of literary production and the role of culture in society. The latter refers to the tendency of oral societies, such as that of Europe in the medieval period, to view knowledge as the product and expression of the collective, rather than to see it as individual property. However, with copyright laws, intellectual production comes to be seen as a product of an individual, with attendant rights. The most significant point is that patent and copyright laws support the expansion of the range of creative human activities that can be commodified. This parallels the ways in which capitalism led to the commodification of many aspects of social life that earlier had no monetary or economic value per se.

Copyright has developed into a concept that has a significant effect on nearly every modern industry, including not just literary work, but also forms of creative work such as sound recordings, films, photographs, software, and architecture.

National copyrights
Often seen as the first real copyright law, the 1709 British Statute of Anne gave authors and the publishers to whom they did chose to license their works, the right to publish the author's creations for a fixed period, after which the copyright expired. It was "An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by Vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or the Purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned." The act also alluded to individual rights of the artist. It began, "Whereas Printers, Booksellers, and other Persons, have of late frequently taken the Liberty of Printing ... Books, and other Writings, without the Consent of the Authors ... to their very great Detriment, and too often to the Ruin of them and their Families:".

A right to benefit financially from the work is articulated, and court rulings and legislation have recognized a right to control the work, such as ensuring that the integrity of it is preserved. An irrevocable right to be recognized as the work's creator appears in some countries' copyright laws.

The Copyright Clause of the United States, Constitution (1787) authorized copyright legislation: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." That is, by guaranteeing them a period of time in which they alone could profit from their works, they would be enabled and encouraged to invest the time required to create them, and this would be good for society as a whole. A right to profit from the work has been the philosophical underpinning for much legislation extending the duration of copyright, to the life of the creator and beyond, to their heirs.

The original length of copyright in the United States was 14 years, and it had to be explicitly applied for. If the author wished, they could apply for a second 14‑year monopoly grant, but after that the work entered the public domain, so it could be used and built upon by others.

Continental law
In many jurisdictions of the European continent, comparable legal concepts to copyright did exist from the 16th century on but did change under Napoleonic rule into another legal concept: authors' rights or creator's right laws, from French: droits d'auteur and German Urheberrecht. In many modern day publications the terms copyright and authors' rights are being mixed, or used as translations, but in a juridical sense the legal concepts do essentially differ. Authors' rights are, generally speaking, from the start absolute property rights of an author of original work that one does not have to apply for. The law is automatically connecting an original work as intellectual property to its creator. Although the concepts throughout the years have been mingled globally, due to international treaties and contracts, distinct differences between jurisdictions continue to exist.

Creator's law was enacted rather late in German speaking states and the economic historian Eckhard Höffner argues that the absence of possibilities to maintain copyright laws in all these states in the early 19th century, encouraged the publishing of low-priced paperbacks for the masses. This was profitable for authors and led to a proliferation of books, enhanced knowledge, and was ultimately an important factor in the ascendency of Germany as a power during that century. After the introduction of creator's rights, German publishers started to follow English customs, in issuing only expensive book editions for wealthy customers.

Empirical evidence derived from the exogenous differential introduction of author's right (Italian: diritto d’autore) in Napoleonic Italy shows that "basic copyrights increased both the number and the quality of operas, measured by their popularity and durability".

International copyright treaties
The 1886 Berne Convention first established recognition of authors' rights among sovereign nations, rather than merely bilaterally. Under the Berne Convention, protective rights for creative works do not have to be asserted or declared, as they are automatically in force at creation: an author need not "register" or "apply for" these protective rights in countries adhering to the Berne Convention. As soon as a work is "fixed", that is, written or recorded on some physical medium, its author is automatically entitled to all intellectual property rights in the work, and to any derivative works unless and until the author explicitly disclaims them, or until the rights expires. The Berne Convention also resulted in foreign authors being treated equivalently to domestic authors, in any country signed onto the convention. The UK signed the Berne Convention in 1887 but did not implement large parts of it until 100 years later with the passage of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Specially, for educational and scientific research purposes, the Berne Convention provides the developing countries issue compulsory licenses for the translation or reproduction of copyrighted works within the limits prescribed by the convention. This was a special provision that had been added at the time of 1971 revision of the convention, because of the strong demands of the developing countries. The United States did not sign the Berne Convention until 1989.

The United States and most Latin American countries instead entered into the Buenos Aires Convention in 1910, which required a copyright notice on the work (such as all rights reserved), and permitted signatory nations to limit the duration of copyrights to shorter and renewable terms. The Universal Copyright Convention was drafted in 1952 as another less demanding alternative to the Berne Convention, and ratified by nations such as the Soviet Union and developing nations.

The regulations of the Berne Convention are incorporated into the World Trade Organization's TRIPS agreement (1995), thus giving the Berne Convention effectively near-global application.

In 1961, the United International Bureaux for the Protection of Intellectual Property signed the Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organizations. In 1996, this organization was succeeded by the founding of the World Intellectual Property Organization, which launched the 1996 WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty and the 2002 WIPO Copyright Treaty, which enacted greater restrictions on the use of technology to copy works in the nations that ratified it. The Trans-Pacific Partnership includes intellectual property provisions relating to copyright.

Copyright laws and authors' right laws are standardized somewhat through these international conventions such as the Berne Convention and Universal Copyright Convention. These multilateral treaties have been ratified by nearly all countries, and international organizations such as the European Union require their member states to comply with them. All member states of the World Trade Organization are obliged to establish minimum levels of copyright protection. Nevertheless, important differences between the national regimes continue to exist.

Ownership
The original holder of the copyright may be the employer of the author rather than the author themself if the work is a "work for hire". For example, in English law the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 provides that if a copyrighted work is made by an employee in the course of that employment, the copyright is automatically owned by the employer which would be a "Work for Hire". Typically, the first owner of a copyright is the person who created the work i.e. the author. But when more than one person creates the work, then a case of joint authorship can be made provided some criteria are met.

Eligible works
Copyright may apply to a wide range of creative, intellectual, or artistic forms, or "works". Specifics vary by jurisdiction, but these can include poems, theses, fictional characters, plays and other literary works, motion pictures, choreography, musical compositions, sound recordings, paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, computer software, radio and television broadcasts, and industrial designs. Graphic designs and industrial designs may have separate or overlapping laws applied to them in some jurisdictions.

Copyright does not cover ideas and information themselves, only the form or manner in which they are expressed. For example, the copyright to a Mickey Mouse cartoon restricts others from making copies of the cartoon or creating derivative works based on Disney's particular anthropomorphic mouse, but does not prohibit the creation of other works about anthropomorphic mice in general, so long as they are different enough not to be judged copies of Disney's.

Originality
Typically, a work must meet minimal standards of originality in order to qualify for copyright, and the copyright expires after a set period of time (some jurisdictions may allow this to be extended). Different countries impose different tests, although generally the requirements are low; in the United Kingdom there has to be some "skill, labour, and judgment" that has gone into it. In Australia and the United Kingdom it has been held that a single word is insufficient to comprise a copyright work. However, single words or a short string of words can sometimes be registered as a trademark instead.

Copyright law recognizes the right of an author based on whether the work actually is an original creation, rather than based on whether it is unique; two authors may own copyright on two substantially identical works, if it is determined that the duplication was coincidental, and neither was copied from the other.

Registration
In all countries where the Berne Convention standards apply, copyright is automatic, and need not be obtained through official registration with any government office. Once an idea has been reduced to tangible form, for example by securing it in a fixed medium (such as a drawing, sheet music, photograph, a videotape, or a computer file), the copyright holder is entitled to enforce their exclusive rights. However, while registration is not needed to exercise copyright, in jurisdictions where the laws provide for registration, it serves as prima facie evidence of a valid copyright and enables the copyright holder to seek statutory damages and attorney's fees. (In the US, registering after an infringement only enables one to receive actual damages and lost profits.)

A widely circulated strategy to avoid the cost of copyright registration is referred to as the poor man's copyright. It proposes that the creator send the work to themself in a sealed envelope by registered mail, using the postmark to establish the date. This technique has not been recognized in any published opinions of the United States courts. The United States Copyright Office says the technique is not a substitute for actual registration. The United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office discusses the technique and notes that the technique (as well as commercial registries) does not constitute dispositive proof that the work is original or establish who created the work.

Fixing
The Berne Convention allows member countries to decide whether creative works must be "fixed" to enjoy copyright. Article 2, Section 2 of the Berne Convention states: "It shall be a matter for legislation in the countries of the Union to prescribe that works in general or any specified categories of works shall not be protected unless they have been fixed in some material form." Some countries do not require that a work be produced in a particular form to obtain copyright protection. For instance, Spain, France, and Australia do not require fixation for copyright protection. The United States and Canada, on the other hand, require that most works must be "fixed in a tangible medium of expression" to obtain copyright protection. US law requires that the fixation be stable and permanent enough to be "perceived, reproduced or communicated for a period of more than transitory duration". Similarly, Canadian courts consider fixation to require that the work be "expressed to some extent at least in some material form, capable of identification and having a more or less permanent endurance".

Note this provision of US law: c) Effect of Berne Convention.—No right or interest in a work eligible for protection under this title may be claimed by virtue of, or in reliance upon, the provisions of the Berne Convention, or the adherence of the United States thereto. Any rights in a work eligible for protection under this title that derive from this title, other Federal or State statutes, or the common law, shall not be expanded or reduced by virtue of, or in reliance upon, the provisions of the Berne Convention, or the adherence of the United States thereto.

Copyright notice
Before 1989, United States law required the use of a copyright notice, consisting of the copyright symbol (©, the letter C inside a circle; Unicode ), the abbreviation "Copr.", or the word "Copyright", followed by the year of the first publication of the work and the name of the copyright holder. Several years may be noted if the work has gone through substantial revisions. The proper copyright notice for sound recordings of musical or other audio works is a sound recording copyright symbol (℗, the letter P inside a circle, Unicode ), which indicates a sound recording copyright, with the letter P indicating a "phonorecord". In addition, the phrase All rights reserved which indicates that the copyright holder reserves, or holds for their own use was once required to assert copyright, but that phrase is now legally obsolete. Almost everything on the Internet has some sort of copyright attached to it. Whether these things are watermarked, signed, or have any other sort of indication of the copyright is a different story however.

In 1989 the United States enacted the Berne Convention Implementation Act, amending the 1976 Copyright Act to conform to most of the provisions of the Berne Convention. As a result, the use of copyright notices has become optional to claim copyright, because the Berne Convention makes copyright automatic. However, the lack of notice of copyright using these marks may have consequences in terms of reduced damages in an infringement lawsuit – using notices of this form may reduce the likelihood of a defense of "innocent infringement" being successful.

Enforcement
Copyrights are generally enforced by the holder in a civil law court, but there are also criminal infringement statutes in some jurisdictions. While central registries are kept in some countries which aid in proving claims of ownership, registering does not necessarily prove ownership, nor does the fact of copying (even without permission) necessarily prove that copyright was infringed. Criminal sanctions are generally aimed at serious counterfeiting activity, but are now becoming more commonplace as copyright collectives such as the RIAA are increasingly targeting the file sharing home Internet user. Thus far, however, most such cases against file sharers have been settled out of court. (See Legal aspects of file sharing)

In most jurisdictions the copyright holder must bear the cost of enforcing copyright. This will usually involve engaging legal representation, administrative or court costs. In light of this, many copyright disputes are settled by a direct approach to the infringing party in order to settle the dispute out of court.

"... by 1978, the scope was expanded to apply to any 'expression' that has been 'fixed' in any medium, this protection granted automatically whether the maker wants it or not, no registration required."

Self-enforcement measures
With older technology like paintings, books, phonographs, and film, it is generally not feasible for consumers to make copies on their own, so producers can simply require payment when transferring physical possession of the storage medium. The equivalent for digital online content is a paywall. The introduction of the photocopier, cassette tape, and videotape made it easier for consumers to copy materials like books and music, but each time a copy was made, it lost some fidelity. Digital media like text, audio, video, and software (even when stored on physical media like compact discs and DVDs) can be copied losslessly, and shared on the Internet, creating a much bigger threat to producer revenue. Some have used digital rights management technology to restrict non-playback access through encryption and other means. Digital watermarks can be used to trace copies, deterring infringement with a more credible threat of legal consequences. Copy protection is used for both digital and pre-Internet electronic media.

Copyright infringement
For a work to be considered to infringe upon copyright, its use must have occurred in a nation that has domestic copyright laws or adheres to a bilateral treaty or established international convention such as the Berne Convention or WIPO Copyright Treaty. Improper use of materials outside of legislation is deemed "unauthorized edition", not copyright infringement.

Statistics regarding the effects of copyright infringement are difficult to determine. Studies have attempted to determine whether there is a monetary loss for industries affected by copyright infringement by predicting what portion of pirated works would have been formally purchased if they had not been freely available. Other reports indicate that copyright infringement does not have an adverse effect on the entertainment industry, and can have a positive effect. In particular, a 2014 university study concluded that free music content, accessed on YouTube, does not necessarily hurt sales, instead has the potential to increase sales.

According to the IP Commission Report the annual cost of intellectual property infringement to the US economy "continues to exceed $225 billion in counterfeit goods, pirated software, and theft of trade secrets and could be as high as $600 billion." A 2019 study sponsored by the US Chamber of Commerce Global Innovation Policy Center (GIPC), in partnership with NERA Economic Consulting "estimates that global online piracy costs the U.S. economy at least $29.2 billion in lost revenue each year." An August 2021 report by the Digital Citizens Alliance states that "online criminals who offer stolen movies, TV shows, games, and live events through websites and apps are reaping $1.34 billion in annual advertising revenues." This comes as a result of users visiting pirate websites who are then subjected to pirated content, malware, and fraud.

Rights granted
According to World Intellectual Property Organisation, copyright protects two types of rights. Economic rights allow right owners to derive financial reward from the use of their works by others. Moral rights allow authors and creators to take certain actions to preserve and protect their link with their work. The author or creator may be the owner of the economic rights or those rights may be transferred to one or more copyright owners. Many countries do not allow the transfer of moral rights.

Economic rights
With any kind of property, its owner may decide how it is to be used, and others can use it lawfully only if they have the owner's permission, often through a license. The owner's use of the property must, however, respect the legally recognised rights and interests of other members of society. So the owner of a copyright-protected work may decide how to use the work, and may prevent others from using it without permission. National laws usually grant copyright owners exclusive rights to allow third parties to use their works, subject to the legally recognised rights and interests of others. Most copyright laws state that authors or other right owners have the right to authorise or prevent certain acts in relation to a work. Right owners can authorise or prohibit:

 * reproduction of the work in various forms, such as printed publications or sound recordings;
 * distribution of copies of the work;
 * public performance of the work;
 * broadcasting or other communication of the work to the public;
 * translation of the work into other languages; and
 * adaptation of the work, such as turning a novel into a screenplay.

Moral rights
Moral rights are concerned with the non-economic rights of a creator. They protect the creator's connection with a work as well as the integrity of the work. Moral rights are only accorded to individual authors and in many national laws they remain with the authors even after the authors have transferred their economic rights. In some EU countries, such as France, moral rights last indefinitely. In the UK, however, moral rights are finite. That is, the right of attribution and the right of integrity last only as long as the work is in copyright. When the copyright term comes to an end, so too do the moral rights in that work. This is just one reason why the moral rights regime within the UK is often regarded as weaker or inferior to the protection of moral rights in continental Europe and elsewhere in the world. The Berne Convention, in Article 6bis, requires its members to grant authors the following rights:

 * 1) the right to claim authorship of a work (sometimes called the right of paternity or the right of attribution); and
 * 2) the right to object to any distortion or modification of a work, or other derogatory action in relation to a work, which would be prejudicial to the author's honour or reputation (sometimes called the right of integrity).

These and other similar rights granted in national laws are generally known as the moral rights of authors. The Berne Convention requires these rights to be independent of authors' economic rights. Moral rights are only accorded to individual authors and in many national laws they remain with the authors even after the authors have transferred their economic rights. This means that even where, for example, a film producer or publisher owns the economic rights in a work, in many jurisdictions the individual author continues to have moral rights. Recently, as a part of the debates being held at the US Copyright Office on the question of inclusion of Moral Rights as a part of the framework of the Copyright Law in United States, the Copyright Office concluded that many diverse aspects of the current moral rights patchwork – including copyright law's derivative work right, state moral rights statutes, and contract law – are generally working well and should not be changed. Further, the Office concludes that there is no need for the creation of a blanket moral rights statute at this time. However, there are aspects of the US moral rights patchwork that could be improved to the benefit of individual authors and the copyright system as a whole.

The Copyright Law in the United States, several exclusive rights are granted to the holder of a copyright, as are listed below:

 * protection of the work;
 * to determine and decide how, and under what conditions, the work may be marketed, publicly displayed, reproduced, distributed, etc.
 * to produce copies or reproductions of the work and to sell those copies; (including, typically, electronic copies)
 * to import or export the work;
 * to create derivative works; (works that adapt the original work)
 * to perform or display the work publicly;
 * to sell or cede these rights to others;
 * to transmit or display by radio, video or internet.

The basic right when a work is protected by copyright is that the holder may determine and decide how and under what conditions the protected work may be used by others. This includes the right to decide to distribute the work for free. This part of copyright is often overseen. The phrase "exclusive right" means that only the copyright holder is free to exercise those rights, and others are prohibited from using the work without the holder's permission. Copyright is sometimes called a "negative right", as it serves to prohibit certain people (e.g., readers, viewers, or listeners, and primarily publishers and would be publishers) from doing something they would otherwise be able to do, rather than permitting people (e.g., authors) to do something they would otherwise be unable to do. In this way it is similar to the unregistered design right in English law and European law. The rights of the copyright holder also permit them to not use or exploit their copyright, for some or all of the term. There is, however, a critique which rejects this assertion as being based on a philosophical interpretation of copyright law that is not universally shared. There is also debate on whether copyright should be considered a property right or a moral right.

UK copyright law gives creators both economic rights and moral rights. While 'copying' someone else's work without permission may constitute an infringement of their economic rights, that is, the reproduction right or the right of communication to the public, whereas, 'mutilating' it might infringe the creator's moral rights. In the UK, moral rights include the right to be identified as the author of the work, which is generally identified as the right of attribution, and the right not to have your work subjected to 'derogatory treatment', that is the right of integrity.

Indian copyright law is at parity with the international standards as contained in TRIPS. The Indian Copyright Act, 1957, pursuant to the amendments in 1999, 2002 and 2012, fully reflects the Berne Convention and the Universal Copyrights Convention, to which India is a party. India is also a party to the Geneva Convention for the Protection of Rights of Producers of Phonograms and is an active member of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The Indian system provides both the economic and moral rights under different provisions of its Indian Copyright Act of 1957.

Duration
Copyright subsists for a variety of lengths in different jurisdictions. The length of the term can depend on several factors, including the type of work (e.g. musical composition, novel), whether the work has been published, and whether the work was created by an individual or a corporation. In most of the world, the default length of copyright is the life of the author plus either 50 or 70 years. In the United States, the term for most existing works is a fixed number of years after the date of creation or publication. Under most countries' laws (for example, the United States and the United Kingdom ), copyrights expire at the end of the calendar year in which they would otherwise expire.

The length and requirements for copyright duration are subject to change by legislation, and since the early 20th century there have been a number of adjustments made in various countries, which can make determining the duration of a given copyright somewhat difficult. For example, the United States used to require copyrights to be renewed after 28 years to stay in force, and formerly required a copyright notice upon first publication to gain coverage. In Italy and France, there were post-wartime extensions that could increase the term by approximately 6 years in Italy and up to about 14 in France. Many countries have extended the length of their copyright terms (sometimes retroactively). International treaties establish minimum terms for copyrights, but individual countries may enforce longer terms than those.

In the United States, all books and other works, except for sound recordings, published before 1929 have expired copyrights and are in the public domain. The applicable date for sound recordings in the United States is before 1923. In addition, works published before 1964 that did not have their copyrights renewed 28 years after first publication year also are in the public domain. Hirtle points out that the great majority of these works (including 93% of the books) were not renewed after 28 years and are in the public domain. Books originally published outside the US by non-Americans are exempt from this renewal requirement, if they are still under copyright in their home country.

But if the intended exploitation of the work includes publication (or distribution of derivative work, such as a film based on a book protected by copyright) outside the US, the terms of copyright around the world must be considered. If the author has been dead more than 70 years, the work is in the public domain in most, but not all, countries.

In 1998, the length of a copyright in the United States was increased by 20 years under the Copyright Term Extension Act. This legislation was the subject of substantial criticism following allegations that the bill was strongly promoted by corporations which had valuable copyrights which otherwise would have expired.

Limitations and exceptions
In many jurisdictions, copyright law makes exceptions to these restrictions when the work is copied for the purpose of commentary or other related uses. United States copyright law does not cover names, titles, short phrases or listings (such as ingredients, recipes, labels, or formulas). However, there are protections available for those areas copyright does not cover, such as trademarks and patents.

Idea–expression dichotomy and the merger doctrine
The idea–expression divide differentiates between ideas and expression, and states that copyright protects only the original expression of ideas, and not the ideas themselves. This principle, first clarified in the 1879 case of Baker v. Selden, has since been codified by the Copyright Act of 1976 at 17 U.S.C. § 102(b).

The first-sale doctrine and exhaustion of rights
Copyright law does not restrict the owner of a copy from reselling legitimately obtained copies of copyrighted works, provided that those copies were originally produced by or with the permission of the copyright holder. It is therefore legal, for example, to resell a copyrighted book or CD. In the United States this is known as the first-sale doctrine, and was established by the courts to clarify the legality of reselling books in second-hand bookstores.

Some countries may have parallel importation restrictions that allow the copyright holder to control the aftermarket. This may mean for example that a copy of a book that does not infringe copyright in the country where it was printed does infringe copyright in a country into which it is imported for retailing. The first-sale doctrine is known as exhaustion of rights in other countries and is a principle which also applies, though somewhat differently, to patent and trademark rights. While this doctrine permits the transfer of the particular legitimate copy involved, it does not permit making or distributing additional copies.

In Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., in 2013, the United States Supreme Court held in a 6–3 decision that the first-sale doctrine applies to goods manufactured abroad with the copyright owner's permission and then imported into the US without such permission. The case involved a plaintiff who imported Asian editions of textbooks that had been manufactured abroad with the publisher-plaintiff's permission. The defendant, without permission from the publisher, imported the textbooks and resold on eBay. The Supreme Court's holding severely limits the ability of copyright holders to prevent such importation.

In addition, copyright, in most cases, does not prohibit one from acts such as modifying, defacing, or destroying one's own legitimately obtained copy of a copyrighted work, so long as duplication is not involved. However, in countries that implement moral rights, a copyright holder can in some cases successfully prevent the mutilation or destruction of a work that is publicly visible.

Fair use and fair dealing
Copyright does not prohibit all copying or replication. In the United States, the fair use doctrine, codified by the Copyright Act of 1976 as 17 U.S.C. Section 107, permits some copying and distribution without permission of the copyright holder or payment to same. The statute does not clearly define fair use, but instead gives four non-exclusive factors to consider in a fair use analysis. Those factors are:
 * 1) the purpose and character of one's use;
 * 2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
 * 3) what amount and proportion of the whole work was taken;
 * 4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

In the United Kingdom and many other Commonwealth countries, a similar notion of fair dealing was established by the courts or through legislation. The concept is sometimes not well defined; however in Canada, private copying for personal use has been expressly permitted by statute since 1999. In Alberta (Education) v. Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright), 2012 SCC 37, the Supreme Court of Canada concluded that limited copying for educational purposes could also be justified under the fair dealing exemption. In Australia, the fair dealing exceptions under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) are a limited set of circumstances under which copyrighted material can be legally copied or adapted without the copyright holder's consent. Fair dealing uses are research and study; review and critique; news reportage and the giving of professional advice (i.e. legal advice). Under current Australian law, although it is still a breach of copyright to copy, reproduce or adapt copyright material for personal or private use without permission from the copyright owner, owners of a legitimate copy are permitted to "format shift" that work from one medium to another for personal, private use, or to "time shift" a broadcast work for later, once and only once, viewing or listening. Other technical exemptions from infringement may also apply, such as the temporary reproduction of a work in machine readable form for a computer.

In the United States the AHRA (Audio Home Recording Act Codified in Section 10, 1992) prohibits action against consumers making noncommercial recordings of music, in return for royalties on both media and devices plus mandatory copy-control mechanisms on recorders.

"Section 1008. Prohibition on certain infringement actions

No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings."

Later acts amended US Copyright law so that for certain purposes making 10 copies or more is construed to be commercial, but there is no general rule permitting such copying. Indeed, making one complete copy of a work, or in many cases using a portion of it, for commercial purposes will not be considered fair use. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act prohibits the manufacture, importation, or distribution of devices whose intended use, or only significant commercial use, is to bypass an access or copy control put in place by a copyright owner. An appellate court has held that fair use is not a defense to engaging in such distribution.

EU copyright laws recognise the right of EU member states to implement some national exceptions to copyright. Examples of those exceptions are:
 * photographic reproductions on paper or any similar medium of works (excluding sheet music) provided that the rightholders receives fair compensation;
 * reproduction made by libraries, educational establishments, museums or archives, which are non-commercial;
 * archival reproductions of broadcasts;
 * uses for the benefit of people with a disability;
 * for demonstration or repair of equipment;
 * for non-commercial research or private study;
 * when used in parody.

Accessible copies
It is legal in several countries including the United Kingdom and the United States to produce alternative versions (for example, in large print or braille) of a copyrighted work to provide improved access to a work for blind and visually impaired people without permission from the copyright holder.

Religious Service Exemption
In the US there is a Religious Service Exemption (1976 law, section 110[3]), namely "performance of a non-dramatic literary or musical work or of a dramatico-musical work of a religious nature or display of a work, in the course of services at a place of worship or other religious assembly" shall not constitute infringement of copyright.

Useful articles
In Canada, items deemed useful articles such as clothing designs are exempted from copyright protection under the Copyright Act if reproduced more than 50 times. Fast fashion brands may reproduce clothing designs from smaller companies without violating copyright protections.

Transfer, assignment and licensing
A copyright, or aspects of it (e.g. reproduction alone, all but moral rights), may be assigned or transferred from one party to another. For example, a musician who records an album will often sign an agreement with a record company in which the musician agrees to transfer all copyright in the recordings in exchange for royalties and other considerations. The creator (and original copyright holder) benefits, or expects to, from production and marketing capabilities far beyond those of the author. In the digital age of music, music may be copied and distributed at minimal cost through the Internet; however, the record industry attempts to provide promotion and marketing for the artist and their work so it can reach a much larger audience. A copyright holder need not transfer all rights completely, though many publishers will insist. Some of the rights may be transferred, or else the copyright holder may grant another party a non-exclusive license to copy or distribute the work in a particular region or for a specified period of time.

A transfer or licence may have to meet particular formal requirements in order to be effective, for example under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 the copyright itself must be expressly transferred in writing. Under the US Copyright Act, a transfer of ownership in copyright must be memorialized in a writing signed by the transferor. For that purpose, ownership in copyright includes exclusive licenses of rights. Thus exclusive licenses, to be effective, must be granted in a written instrument signed by the grantor. No special form of transfer or grant is required. A simple document that identifies the work involved and the rights being granted is sufficient. Non-exclusive grants (often called non-exclusive licenses) need not be in writing under US law. They can be oral or even implied by the behavior of the parties. Transfers of copyright ownership, including exclusive licenses, may and should be recorded in the U.S. Copyright Office. (Information on recording transfers is available on the Office's web site.) While recording is not required to make the grant effective, it offers important benefits, much like those obtained by recording a deed in a real estate transaction.

Copyright may also be licensed. Some jurisdictions may provide that certain classes of copyrighted works be made available under a prescribed statutory license (e.g. musical works in the United States used for radio broadcast or performance). This is also called a compulsory license, because under this scheme, anyone who wishes to copy a covered work does not need the permission of the copyright holder, but instead merely files the proper notice and pays a set fee established by statute (or by an agency decision under statutory guidance) for every copy made. Failure to follow the proper procedures would place the copier at risk of an infringement suit. Because of the difficulty of following every individual work, copyright collectives or collecting societies and performing rights organizations (such as ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC) have been formed to collect royalties for hundreds (thousands and more) works at once. Though this market solution bypasses the statutory license, the availability of the statutory fee still helps dictate the price per work collective rights organizations charge, driving it down to what avoidance of procedural hassle would justify.

Free licenses
Copyright licenses known as open or free licenses seek to grant several rights to licensees, either for a fee or not. Free in this context is not as much of a reference to price as it is to freedom. What constitutes free licensing has been characterised in a number of similar definitions, including by order of longevity the Free Software Definition, the Debian Free Software Guidelines, the Open Source Definition and the Definition of Free Cultural Works. Further refinements to these definitions have resulted in categories such as copyleft and permissive. Common examples of free licences are the GNU General Public License, BSD licenses and some Creative Commons licenses.

Founded in 2001 by James Boyle, Lawrence Lessig, and Hal Abelson, the Creative Commons (CC) is a non-profit organization which aims to facilitate the legal sharing of creative works. To this end, the organization provides a number of generic copyright license options to the public, gratis. These licenses allow copyright holders to define conditions under which others may use a work and to specify what types of use are acceptable.

Terms of use have traditionally been negotiated on an individual basis between copyright holder and potential licensee. Therefore, a general CC license outlining which rights the copyright holder is willing to waive enables the general public to use such works more freely. Six general types of CC licenses are available (although some of them are not properly free per the above definitions and per Creative Commons' own advice). These are based upon copyright-holder stipulations such as whether they are willing to allow modifications to the work, whether they permit the creation of derivative works and whether they are willing to permit commercial use of the work. approximately 130 million individuals had received such licenses.

Criticism
Some sources are critical of particular aspects of the copyright system. This is known as a debate over copynorms. Particularly to the background of uploading content to internet platforms and the digital exchange of original work, there is discussion about the copyright aspects of downloading and streaming, the copyright aspects of hyperlinking and framing.

Concerns are often couched in the language of digital rights, digital freedom, database rights, open data or censorship. Discussions include Free Culture, a 2004 book by Lawrence Lessig. Lessig coined the term permission culture to describe a worst-case system. Good Copy Bad Copy (documentary) and RiP!: A Remix Manifesto, discuss copyright. Some suggest an alternative compensation system. In Europe consumers are acting up against the raising costs of music, film and books, and as a result Pirate Parties have been created. Some groups reject copyright altogether, taking an anti-copyright stance. The perceived inability to enforce copyright online leads some to advocate ignoring legal statutes when on the web.

Public domain
Copyright, like other intellectual property rights, is subject to a statutorily determined term. Once the term of a copyright has expired, the formerly copyrighted work enters the public domain and may be used or exploited by anyone without obtaining permission, and normally without payment. However, in paying public domain regimes the user may still have to pay royalties to the state or to an authors' association. Courts in common law countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, have rejected the doctrine of a common law copyright. Public domain works should not be confused with works that are publicly available. Works posted in the internet, for example, are publicly available, but are not generally in the public domain. Copying such works may therefore violate the author's copyright.

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Talk:Copyright

"Ownership of articles" listed at Redirects for discussion
The redirect [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ownership_of_articles&redirect=no Ownership of articles] has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached. Jay 💬 06:42, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

US Centricity
Hello. I just created my account today, so please forgive any newbie mistakes :) I wanted to share my thoughts on this article:

The article seems very US-centric. Many sections explain general concepts of copyright and then provide specific examples of US implementation. While it's appropriate to include examples of US laws, it would be beneficial to expand the scope.

I especially feel that the section on Duration could benefit greatly from focusing on global durations. While many countries have the same duration as the US due to international treaties, the differences that do exist are what's actually important. DislekzticBoi (talk) 21:14, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Evolution of length of copyright is poorly covered
The article is very skimpy on the evolution of length of copyright. It does not say what was the length in the Statute of Anne, for example. One must read half the article to find that the period was initially 14 years in the US. Jorge Stolfi (talk) 16:52, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

"Intellectual property" is a very misleading term
Copyright is not property. Copyright is a monopoly right that is expressly limited in time, whereas property is permanent. Violating copyright is violating a monopoly concession, a business offense; whereas violating someone's property right is theft, a very serious crime. The reason why the term "intellectual property" came to be common in the late 1900s is because publishers want copyright to become permanent too, and its violators to be criminally prosecuted for theft. Wikipedia should be wary of helping that attempt at "legislation by lexicon". Jorge Stolfi (talk) 17:02, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

singular they
[this is in regards to a dispute over the preferred phrasing in the "moral rights" section; the dilemma is between using "him/her" in a sentence, to match a singular antecedent, or "them"]. as can be seen by reading the wikipedia article on "singular they", the pronouns "they/them" can be used grammatically as singular pronouns. this usage is also present in the online oxford dictionary, under (they>meaning and use>1.2.b). finally, as I'm sure many are aware, some people are referred to neither by "he" nor by "she", which is why I see it valuable to use the more general "they". I accept that this disagreement won't be resolved by brute-force edit wars, which is why I won't reedit this again, but only ask that future edits on this issue be addressed under this topic and given full elaborations; this includes in particular, in the case of the previous edit, backing up the (implied*) claim that "they" should not be used as a singular pronoun. *I recognize that this is my subjective reading of the previous editor's edit description, and would appreciate being corrected if this was not (his/her/their) intention. SchwartzYosale (talk) 17:44, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

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Catalan language

Catalan ( or  ; autonym: català, ), known in the Valencian Community and Carche as Valencian (autonym: valencià), is a Western Romance language. It is the official language of Andorra, and an official language of three autonomous communities in eastern Spain: Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and the Valencian Community, where it is called Valencian. It has semi-official status in the Italian comune of Alghero, and it is spoken in the Pyrénées-Orientales department of France and in two further areas in eastern Spain: the eastern strip of Aragon and the Carche area in the Region of Murcia. The Catalan-speaking territories are often called the Països Catalans or "Catalan Countries".

The language evolved from Vulgar Latin in the Middle Ages around the eastern Pyrenees. Nineteenth-century Spain saw a Catalan literary revival, culminating in the early 1900s.

Etymology and pronunciation

The word Catalan is derived from the territorial name of Catalonia, itself of disputed etymology. The main theory suggests that Catalunya (Gathia Launia) derives from the name Gothia or Gauthia ('Land of the Goths'), since the origins of the Catalan counts, lords and people were found in the March of Gothia, whence Gothland > Gothlandia > Gothalania > Catalonia theoretically derived.

In English, the term referring to a person first appears in the mid 14th century as Catelaner, followed in the 15th century as Catellain (from Middle French). It is attested a language name since at least 1652. The word Catalan can be pronounced in English as, or.

The endonym is pronounced in the Eastern Catalan dialects, and  in the Western dialects. In the Valencian Community and Carche, the term valencià is frequently used instead. Thus, the name "Valencian", although often employed for referring to the varieties specific to the Valencian Community and Carche, is also used by Valencians as a name for the language as a whole, synonymous with "Catalan". Both uses of the term have their respective entries in the dictionaries by the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua and the Institut d'Estudis Catalans. See also status of Valencian below.

Middle Ages
By the 9th century, Catalan had evolved from Vulgar Latin on both sides of the eastern end of the Pyrenees, as well as the territories of the Roman province of Hispania Tarraconensis to the south. From the 8th century onwards the Catalan counts extended their territory southwards and westwards at the expense of the Muslims, bringing their language with them. This process was given definitive impetus with the separation of the County of Barcelona from the Carolingian Empire in 988.

In the 11th century, documents written in macaronic Latin begin to show Catalan elements, with texts written almost completely in Romance appearing by 1080. Old Catalan shared many features with Gallo-Romance, diverging from Old Occitan between the 11th and 14th centuries.

During the 11th and 12th centuries the Catalan rulers expanded southward to the Ebro river, and in the 13th century they conquered the Land of Valencia and the Balearic Islands. The city of Alghero in Sardinia was repopulated with Catalan speakers in the 14th century. The language also reached Murcia, which became Spanish-speaking in the 15th century.

In the Low Middle Ages, Catalan went through a golden age, reaching a peak of maturity and cultural richness. Examples include the work of Majorcan polymath Ramon Llull (1232–1315), the Four Great Chronicles (13th–14th centuries), and the Valencian school of poetry culminating in Ausiàs March (1397–1459). By the 15th century, the city of Valencia had become the sociocultural center of the Crown of Aragon, and Catalan was present all over the Mediterranean world. During this period, the Royal Chancery propagated a highly standardized language. Catalan was widely used as an official language in Sicily until the 15th century, and in Sardinia until the 17th. During this period, the language was what Costa Carreras terms "one of the 'great languages' of medieval Europe".

Martorell's novel of chivalry Tirant lo Blanc (1490) shows a transition from Medieval to Renaissance values, something that can also be seen in Metge's work. The first book produced with movable type in the Iberian Peninsula was printed in Catalan.

Spain
With the union of the crowns of Castille and Aragon in 1479, the Spanish kings ruled over different kingdoms, each with its own cultural, linguistic and political particularities, and they had to swear by the laws of each territory before the respective parliaments. But after the War of the Spanish Succession, Spain became an absolute monarchy under Philip V, which led to the assimilation of the Crown of Aragon by the Crown of Castile through the Nueva Planta decrees, as a first step in the creation of the Spanish nation-state; as in other contemporary European states, this meant the imposition of the political and cultural characteristics of the dominant groups. Since the political unification of 1714, Spanish assimilation policies towards national minorities have been a constant. The process of assimilation began with secret instructions to the corregidores of the Catalan territory: they "will take the utmost care to introduce the Castilian language, for which purpose he will give the most temperate and disguised measures so that the effect is achieved, without the care being noticed." From there, actions in the service of assimilation, discreet or aggressive, were continued, and reached to the last detail, such as, in 1799, the Royal Certificate forbidding anyone to "represent, sing and dance pieces that were not in Spanish." The use of Spanish gradually became more prestigious and marked the start of the decline of Catalan. Starting in the 16th century, Catalan literature came under the influence of Spanish, and the nobles, part of the urban and literary classes became bilingual.

France
With the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659), Spain ceded the northern part of Catalonia to France, and soon thereafter the local Catalan varieties came under the influence of French, which in 1700 became the sole official language of the region.

Shortly after the French Revolution (1789), the French First Republic prohibited official use of, and enacted discriminating policies against, the regional languages of France, such as Catalan, Alsatian, Breton, Occitan, Flemish, and Basque.

France: 19th to 20th century

After the French colony of Algeria was established in 1830, many Catalan-speaking settlers moved there. People from the Spanish province of Alicante settled around Oran, while those from French Catalonia and Menorca migrated to Algiers.

By 1911, there were around 100,000 speakers of Patuet, as their speech was called. After the Algerian declaration of independence in 1962, almost all the Pied-Noir Catalan speakers fled to Northern Catalonia or Alicante.

The French government only recognizes French as an official language. Nevertheless, on 10 December 2007, the then General Council of the Pyrénées-Orientales officially recognized Catalan as one of the départment's languages and seeks to further promote it in public life and education.

Spain: 18th to 20th century
In 1807, the Statistics Office of the French Ministry of the Interior asked the prefects for an official survey on the limits of the French language. The survey found that in Roussillon, almost only Catalan was spoken, and since Napoleon wanted to incorporate Catalonia into France, as happened in 1812, the consul in Barcelona was also asked. He declared that Catalan "is taught in schools, it is printed and spoken, not only among the lower class, but also among people of first quality, also in social gatherings, as in visits and congresses", indicating that it was spoken everywhere "with the exception of the royal courts". He also indicated that Catalan was spoken "in the Kingdom of Valencia, in the islands of Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza, Sardinia, Corsica and much of Sicily, in the Vall d "Aran and Cerdaña".

The defeat of the pro-Habsburg coalition in the War of Spanish Succession (1714) initiated a series of laws which, among other centralizing measures, imposed the use of Spanish in legal documentation all over Spain. Because of this, use of the Catalan language declined into the 18th century.

However, the 19th century saw a Catalan literary revival (Renaixença), which has continued up to the present day. This period starts with Aribau's Ode to the Homeland (1833); followed in the second half of the 19th century, and the early 20th by the work of Verdaguer (poetry), Oller (realist novel), and Guimerà (drama). In the 19th century, the region of Carche, in the province of Murcia was repopulated with Valencian speakers. Catalan spelling was standardized in 1913 and the language became official during the Second Spanish Republic (1931–1939). The Second Spanish Republic saw a brief period of tolerance, with most restrictions against Catalan lifted. The Generalitat (the autonomous government of Catalonia, established during the Republic in 1931) made a normal use of Catalan in its administration and put efforts to promote it at social level, including in schools and the University of Barcelona.

The Catalan language and culture were still vibrant during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), but were crushed at an unprecedented level throughout the subsequent decades due to Francoist dictatorship (1939–1975), which abolished the official status of Catalan and imposed the use of Spanish in schools and in public administration in all of Spain, while banning the use of Catalan in them. Between 1939 and 1943 newspapers and book printing in Catalan almost disappeared. Francisco Franco's desire for a homogeneous Spanish population resonated with some Catalans in favor of his regime, primarily members of the upper class, who began to reject the use of Catalan. Despite all of these hardships, Catalan continued to be used privately within households, and it was able to survive Franco's dictatorship. At the end of World War II, however, some of the harsh measures began to be lifted and, while Spanish language remained the sole promoted one, limited number of Catalan literature began to be tolerated. Several prominent Catalan authors resisted the suppression through literature. Private initiative contests were created to reward works in Catalan, among them Joan Martorell prize (1947), Víctor Català prize (1953) Carles Riba award (1950), or the Honor Award of Catalan Letters (1969). The first Catalan-language TV show was broadcast in 1964. At the same time, oppression of the Catalan language and identity was carried out in schools, through governmental bodies, and in religious centers.

In addition to the loss of prestige for Catalan and its prohibition in schools, migration during the 1950s into Catalonia from other parts of Spain also contributed to the diminished use of the language. These migrants were often unaware of the existence of Catalan, and thus felt no need to learn or use it. Catalonia was the economic powerhouse of Spain, so these migrations continued to occur from all corners of the country. Employment opportunities were reduced for those who were not bilingual. Daily newspapers remained exclusively in Spanish until after Franco's death, when the first one in Catalan since the end of the Civil War, Avui, began to be published in 1976.

Present day
Since the Spanish transition to democracy (1975–1982), Catalan has been institutionalized as an official language, language of education, and language of mass media; all of which have contributed to its increased prestige. In Catalonia, there is an unparalleled large bilingual European non-state linguistic community. The teaching of Catalan is mandatory in all schools, but it is possible to use Spanish for studying in the public education system of Catalonia in two situations – if the teacher assigned to a class chooses to use Spanish, or during the learning process of one or more recently arrived immigrant students. There is also some intergenerational shift towards Catalan.

More recently, several Spanish political forces have tried to increase the use of Spanish in the Catalan educational system. As a result, in May 2022 the Spanish Supreme Court urged the Catalan regional government to enforce a measure by which 25% of all lessons must be taught in Spanish.

According to the Statistical Institute of Catalonia, in 2013 the Catalan language is the second most commonly used in Catalonia, after Spanish, as a native or self-defining language: 7% of the population self-identifies with both Catalan and Spanish equally, 36.4% with Catalan and 47.5% only Spanish. In 2003 the same studies concluded no language preference for self-identification within the population above 15 years old: 5% self-identified with both languages, 44.3% with Catalan and 47.5% with Spanish. To promote use of Catalan, the Generalitat de Catalunya (Catalonia's official Autonomous government) spends part of its annual budget on the promotion of the use of Catalan in Catalonia and in other territories, with entities such as Consorci per a la Normalització Lingüística (Consortium for Linguistic Normalization)

In Andorra, Catalan has always been the sole official language. Since the promulgation of the 1993 constitution, several policies favoring Catalan have been enforced, like Catalan medium education.

On the other hand, there are several language shift processes currently taking place. In the Northern Catalonia area of France, Catalan has followed the same trend as the other minority languages of France, with most of its native speakers being 60 or older (as of 2004). Catalan is studied as a foreign language by 30% of the primary education students, and by 15% of the secondary. The cultural association La Bressola promotes a network of community-run schools engaged in Catalan language immersion programs.

In Alicante province, Catalan is being replaced by Spanish and in Alghero by Italian. There is also well ingrained diglossia in the Valencian Community, Ibiza, and to a lesser extent, in the rest of the Balearic islands.

During the 20th century many Catalans emigrated or went into exile to Venezuela, Mexico, Cuba, Argentina, and other South American countries. They formed a large number of Catalan colonies that today continue to maintain the Catalan language. They also founded many Catalan casals (associations).

Classification and relationship with other Romance languages
One classification of Catalan is given by Pèire Bèc:
 * Romance languages
 * Italo-Western languages
 * Western Romance languages
 * Gallo-Iberian languages
 * Gallo-Romance languages
 * Occitano-Romance languages
 * Catalan language

However, the ascription of Catalan to the Occitano-Romance branch of Gallo-Romance languages is not shared by all linguists and philologists, particularly among Spanish ones, such as Ramón Menéndez Pidal.

Catalan bears varying degrees of similarity to the linguistic varieties subsumed under the cover term Occitan language (see also differences between Occitan and Catalan and Gallo-Romance languages). Thus, as it should be expected from closely related languages, Catalan today shares many traits with other Romance languages.

Relationship with other Romance languages
Some include Catalan in Occitan, as the linguistic distance between this language and some Occitan dialects (such as the Gascon dialect) is similar to the distance among different Occitan dialects. Catalan was considered a dialect of Occitan until the end of the 19th century and still today remains its closest relative.

Catalan shares many traits with the other neighboring Romance languages (Occitan, French, Italian, Sardinian as well as Spanish and Portuguese among others). However, despite being spoken mostly on the Iberian Peninsula, Catalan has marked differences with the Iberian Romance group (Spanish and Portuguese) in terms of pronunciation, grammar, and especially vocabulary; it shows instead its closest affinity with languages native to France and northern Italy, particularly Occitan and to a lesser extent Gallo-Romance (Franco-Provençal, French, Gallo-Italian).

According to Ethnologue, the lexical similarity between Catalan and other Romance languages is: 87% with Italian; 85% with Portuguese and Spanish; 76% with Ladin and Romansh; 75% with Sardinian; and 73% with Romanian.

During much of its history, and especially during the Francoist dictatorship (1939–1975), the Catalan language was ridiculed as a mere dialect of Spanish. This view, based on political and ideological considerations, has no linguistic validity. Spanish and Catalan have important differences in their sound systems, lexicon, and grammatical features, placing the language in features closer to Occitan (and French).

There is evidence that, at least from the 2nd century, the vocabulary and phonology of Roman Tarraconensis was different from the rest of Roman Hispania. Differentiation arose generally because Spanish, Asturian, and Galician-Portuguese share certain peripheral archaisms (Spanish hervir, Asturian and Portuguese ferver vs. Catalan bullir, Occitan bolir "to boil") and innovatory regionalisms (Sp novillo, Ast nuviellu vs. Cat torell, Oc taurèl "bullock"), while Catalan has a shared history with the Western Romance innovative core, especially Occitan.

Like all Romance languages, Catalan has a handful of native words which are unique to it, or rare elsewhere. These include:
 * verbs: 'to fasten; transfix' > confegir 'to compose, write up',  > conjuminar 'to combine, conjugate',  > deixondar/-ir 'to wake; awaken',  'to thicken; crowd together' > desar 'to save, keep',  > enyorar 'to miss, yearn, pine for',  'to investigate, track' > Old Catalan enagar 'to incite, induce',  > OCat ujar 'to exhaust, fatigue',  > apaivagar 'to appease, mollify',  > rebutjar 'to reject, refuse';
 * nouns: > brisa 'pomace',  > boga 'reedmace',  > cadarn 'catarrh',  > congesta 'snowdrift',  > deler 'ardor, passion',  > freu 'brake',  > (a)llau 'avalanche',  > vora 'edge, border',  'sawfish' > pestriu > pestiu 'thresher shark, smooth hound; ray',  'live coal' > espurna 'spark',  > tardaó > tardor 'autumn'.

The Gothic superstrate produced different outcomes in Spanish and Catalan. For example, Catalan "mud" and  "to roast", of Germanic origin, contrast with Spanish  and, of Latin origin; whereas Catalan  "spinning wheel" and  "temple", of Latin origin, contrast with Spanish  and , of Germanic origin.

The same happens with Arabic loanwords. Thus, Catalan alfàbia "large earthenware jar" and "tile", of Arabic origin, contrast with Spanish  and, of Latin origin; whereas Catalan  "oil" and  "olive", of Latin origin, contrast with Spanish  and. However, the Arabic element is generally much more prevalent in Spanish.

Situated between two large linguistic blocks (Iberian Romance and Gallo-Romance), Catalan has many unique lexical choices, such as "to miss somebody",  "to calm somebody down", and  "reject".

Catalan-speaking territories
Traditionally Catalan-speaking territories are sometimes called the Països Catalans (Catalan Countries), a denomination based on cultural affinity and common heritage, that has also had a subsequent political interpretation but no official status. Various interpretations of the term may include some or all of these regions.

Number of speakers
The number of people known to be fluent in Catalan varies depending on the sources used. A 2004 study did not count the total number of speakers, but estimated a total of 9–9.5 million by matching the percentage of speakers to the population of each area where Catalan is spoken. The web site of the Generalitat de Catalunya estimated that as of 2004 there were 9,118,882 speakers of Catalan. These figures only reflect potential speakers; today it is the native language of only 35.6% of the Catalan population. According to Ethnologue, Catalan had 4.1 million native speakers and 5.1 million second-language speakers in 2021.

According to a 2011 study the total number of Catalan speakers was over 9.8 million, with 5.9 million residing in Catalonia. More than half of them spoke Catalan as a second language, with native speakers being about 4.4 million of those (more than 2.8 in Catalonia). Very few Catalan monoglots exist; virtually all of the Catalan speakers in Spain are bilingual speakers of Catalan and Spanish, with 99.7% of Catalan speakers in Catalonia able to speak Spanish and 99.9% able to understand it.

In Roussillon, only a minority of French Catalans speak Catalan nowadays, with French being the majority language for the inhabitants after a continued process of language shift. According to a 2019 survey by the Catalan government, 31.5% of the inhabitants of Catalonia predominantly spoke Catalan at home whereas 52.7% spoke Spanish, 2.8% both Catalan and Spanish and 10.8% other languages.

Spanish was the most spoken language in Barcelona (according to the linguistic census held by the Government of Catalonia in 2013) and it is understood almost universally. According to 2013 census, Catalan was also very commonly spoken in the city of 1,501,262: it was understood by 95% of the population, while 72.3% over the age of two could speak it (1,137,816), 79% could read it (1,246.555), and 53% could write it (835,080). The share of Barcelona residents who could speak it (72.3%) was lower than that of the overall Catalan population, of whom 81.2% over the age of 15 spoke the language. Knowledge of Catalan has increased significantly in recent decades thanks to a language immersion educational system. An important social characteristic of the Catalan language is that all the areas where it is spoken are bilingual in practice: together with French in Roussillon, with Italian in Alghero, with Spanish and French in Andorra, and with Spanish in the rest of the territories.

 * 1. The number of people who understand Catalan includes those who can speak it.
 * 2. Figures relate to all self-declared capable speakers, not just native speakers.

Level of knowledge
(% of the population 15 years old and older).

Social use
(% of the population 15 years old and older).

Phonology
Catalan phonology varies by dialect. Notable features include:
 * Marked contrast of the vowel pairs and, as in other Western Romance languages, other than Spanish.
 * Lack of diphthongization of Latin short ĕ, ŏ, as in Galician and Portuguese, but unlike French, Spanish, or Italian.
 * Abundance of diphthongs containing, as in Galician and Portuguese.

In contrast to other Romance languages, Catalan has many monosyllabic words, and these may end in a wide variety of consonants, including some consonant clusters. Additionally, Catalan has final obstruent devoicing, which gives rise to an abundance of such couplets as amic ("male friend") vs. amiga ("female friend").

Central Catalan pronunciation is considered to be standard for the language. The descriptions below are mostly representative of this variety. For the differences in pronunciation between the different dialects, see the section on pronunciation of dialects in this article.

Vowels

Catalan has inherited the typical vowel system of Vulgar Latin, with seven stressed phonemes:, a common feature in Western Romance, with the exception of Spanish. Balearic also has instances of stressed. Dialects differ in the different degrees of vowel reduction, and the incidence of the pair.

In Central Catalan, unstressed vowels reduce to three: ; ; remains distinct. The other dialects have different vowel reduction processes (see the section pronunciation of dialects in this article).

Consonants
The consonant system of Catalan is rather conservative.
 * has a velarized allophone in syllable coda position in most dialects. However, is velarized irrespective of position in Eastern dialects like Majorcan and standard Eastern Catalan.
 * occurs in Balearic, Algherese, standard Valencian and some areas in southern Catalonia. It has merged with elsewhere.
 * Voiced obstruents undergo final-obstruent devoicing:.
 * Voiced stops become lenited to approximants in syllable onsets, after continuants: >,  > ,  > . Exceptions include  after lateral consonants, and  after . In coda position, these sounds are realized as stops, except in some Valencian dialects where they are lenited.
 * There is some confusion in the literature about the precise phonetic characteristics of, , , . Some sources describe them as "postalveolar". Others as "back alveolo-palatal", implying that the characters ⟨ɕ ʑ tɕ dʑ⟩ would be more accurate. However, in all literature only the characters for palato-alveolar affricates and fricatives are used, even when the same sources use ⟨ɕ ʑ⟩ for other languages like Polish and Chinese.
 * The distribution of the two rhotics and  closely parallels that of Spanish. Between vowels, the two contrast, but they are otherwise in complementary distribution: in the onset of the first syllable in a word,  appears unless preceded by a consonant. Dialects vary in regards to rhotics in the coda with Western Catalan generally featuring  and Central Catalan dialects featuring a weakly trilled  unless it precedes a vowel-initial word in the same prosodic unit, in which case  appears.
 * In careful speech,, , may be geminated. Geminated  may also occur. Some analyze intervocalic  as the result of gemination of a single rhotic phoneme. This is similar to the common analysis of Spanish and Portuguese rhotics.

Sociolinguistics
Catalan sociolinguistics studies the situation of Catalan in the world and the different varieties that this language presents. It is a subdiscipline of Catalan philology and other affine studies and has as an objective to analyze the relation between the Catalan language, the speakers and the close reality (including the one of other languages in contact).

Preferential subjects of study

 * Dialects of Catalan
 * Variations of Catalan by class, gender, profession, age and level of studies
 * Process of linguistic normalization
 * Relations between Catalan and Spanish or French
 * Perception on the language of Catalan speakers and non-speakers
 * Presence of Catalan in several fields: tagging, public function, media, professional sectors

Overview

The dialects of the Catalan language feature a relative uniformity, especially when compared to other Romance languages; both in terms of vocabulary, semantics, syntax, morphology, and phonology. Mutual intelligibility between dialects is very high, estimates ranging from 90% to 95%. The only exception is the isolated idiosyncratic Algherese dialect.

Catalan is split in two major dialectal blocks: Eastern and Western. The main difference lies in the treatment of unstressed a and e; which have merged to in Eastern dialects, but which remain distinct as  and  in Western dialects. There are a few other differences in pronunciation, verbal morphology, and vocabulary.

Western Catalan comprises the two dialects of Northwestern Catalan and Valencian; the Eastern block comprises four dialects: Central Catalan, Balearic, Rossellonese, and Algherese. Each dialect can be further subdivided in several subdialects. The terms "Catalan" and "Valencian" (respectively used in Catalonia and the Valencian Community) refer to two varieties of the same language. There are two institutions regulating the two standard varieties, the Institute of Catalan Studies in Catalonia and the Valencian Academy of the Language in the Valencian Community.

Central Catalan is considered the standard pronunciation of the language and has the largest number of speakers. It is spoken in the densely populated regions of the Barcelona province, the eastern half of the province of Tarragona, and most of the province of Girona.

Catalan has an inflectional grammar. Nouns have two genders (masculine, feminine), and two numbers (singular, plural). Pronouns additionally can have a neuter gender, and some are also inflected for case and politeness, and can be combined in very complex ways. Verbs are split in several paradigms and are inflected for person, number, tense, aspect, mood, and gender. In terms of pronunciation, Catalan has many words ending in a wide variety of consonants and some consonant clusters, in contrast with many other Romance languages.

Vowels
Catalan has inherited the typical vowel system of Vulgar Latin, with seven stressed phonemes:, a common feature in Western Romance, except Spanish. Balearic has also instances of stressed. Dialects differ in the different degrees of vowel reduction, and the incidence of the pair.

In Eastern Catalan (except Majorcan), unstressed vowels reduce to three: ; ; remains distinct. There are a few instances of unreduced, in some words. Algherese has lowered to.

In Majorcan, unstressed vowels reduce to four: follow the Eastern Catalan reduction pattern; however  reduce to, with  remaining distinct, as in Western Catalan.

In Western Catalan, unstressed vowels reduce to five: ; ; remain distinct. This reduction pattern, inherited from Proto-Romance, is also found in Italian and Portuguese. Some Western dialects present further reduction or vowel harmony in some cases.

Central, Western, and Balearic differ in the lexical incidence of stressed and. Usually, words with in Central Catalan correspond to  in Balearic and  in Western Catalan. Words with in Balearic almost always have  in Central and Western Catalan as well. As a result, Central Catalan has a much higher incidence of.

Morphology
Western Catalan: In verbs, the ending for 1st-person present indicative is -e in verbs of the 1st conjugation and -∅ in verbs of the 2nd and 3rd conjugations in most of the Valencian Community, or -o in all verb conjugations in the Northern Valencian Community and Western Catalonia. E.g. parle, tem, sent (Valencian); parlo, temo, sento (Northwestern Catalan).

Eastern Catalan: In verbs, the ending for 1st-person present indicative is -o, -i, or -∅ in all conjugations. E.g. parlo (Central), parl (Balearic), and parli (Northern), all meaning ('I speak').

Western Catalan: In verbs, the inchoative endings are -isc/-esc, -ix, -ixen, -isca/-esca.

Eastern Catalan: In verbs, the inchoative endings are -eixo, -eix, -eixen, -eixi.

Western Catalan: In nouns and adjectives, maintenance of of medieval plurals in proparoxytone words. E.g. hòmens 'men', jóvens 'youth'.

Eastern Catalan: In nouns and adjectives, loss of of medieval plurals in proparoxytone words. E.g. homes 'men', joves 'youth' (Ibicencan, however, follows the model of Western Catalan in this case ).

Vocabulary
Despite its relative lexical unity, the two dialectal blocks of Catalan (Eastern and Western) show some differences in word choices. Any lexical divergence within any of the two groups can be explained as an archaism. Also, usually Central Catalan acts as an innovative element.

Standards

Standard Catalan, virtually accepted by all speakers, is mostly based on Eastern Catalan, which is the most widely used dialect. Nevertheless, the standards of the Valencian Community and the Balearics admit alternative forms, mostly traditional ones, which are not current in eastern Catalonia.

The most notable difference between both standards is some tonic $⟨e⟩$ accentuation, for instance: francès, anglès (IEC) – francés, anglés (AVL). Nevertheless, AVL's standard keeps the grave accent $⟨è⟩$, while pronouncing it as rather than, in some words like: què ('what'), or València. Other divergences include the use of $⟨tl⟩$ (AVL) in some words instead of $⟨tll⟩$ like in ametla/ametlla ('almond'), espatla/espatlla ('back'), the use of elided demonstratives (este 'this', eixe 'that') in the same level as reinforced ones (aquest, aqueix) or the use of many verbal forms common in Valencian, and some of these common in the rest of Western Catalan too, like subjunctive mood or inchoative conjugation in -ix- at the same level as -eix- or the priority use of -e morpheme in 1st person singular in present indicative (-ar verbs): jo compre instead of jo compro ('I buy').

In the Balearic Islands, IEC's standard is used but adapted for the Balearic dialect by the University of the Balearic Islands's philological section. In this way, for instance, IEC says it is correct writing cantam as much as cantem ('we sing'), but the university says that the priority form in the Balearic Islands must be cantam in all fields. Another feature of the Balearic standard is the non-ending in the 1st person singular present indicative: jo compr ('I buy'), jo tem ('I fear'), jo dorm ('I sleep').

In Alghero, the IEC has adapted its standard to the Algherese dialect. In this standard one can find, among other features: the definite article lo instead of el, special possessive pronouns and determinants la mia ('mine'), lo sou/la sua ('his/her'), lo tou/la tua ('yours'), and so on, the use of -v- in the imperfect tense in all conjugations: cantava, creixiva, llegiva; the use of many archaic words, usual words in Algherese: manco instead of menys ('less'), calqui u instead of algú ('someone'), qual/quala instead of quin/quina ('which'), and so on; and the adaptation of weak pronouns. In 1999, Catalan (Algherese dialect) was among the twelve minority languages officially recognized as Italy's "historical linguistic minorities" by the Italian State under Law No. 482/1999.

In 2011, the Aragonese government passed a decree approving the statutes of a new language regulator of Catalan in La Franja (the so-called Catalan-speaking areas of Aragon) as originally provided for by Law 10/2009. The new entity, designated as Institut Aragonès del Català, shall allow a facultative education in Catalan and a standardization of the Catalan language in La Franja.

Status of Valencian

Valencian is classified as a Western dialect, along with the northwestern varieties spoken in Western Catalonia (provinces of Lleida and the western half of Tarragona). Central Catalan has 90% to 95% inherent intelligibility for speakers of Valencian.

Linguists, including Valencian scholars, deal with Catalan and Valencian as the same language. The official regulating body of the language of the Valencian Community, the Valencian Academy of Language (Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua, AVL) declares the linguistic unity between Valencian and Catalan varieties.

The AVL, created by the Valencian parliament, is in charge of dictating the official rules governing the use of Valencian, and its standard is based on the Norms of Castelló (Normes de Castelló). Currently, everyone who writes in Valencian uses this standard, except the Royal Academy of Valencian Culture (Acadèmia de Cultura Valenciana, RACV), which uses an independent standard for Valencian.

Despite the position of the official organizations, an opinion poll carried out between 2001 and 2004 showed that the majority of the Valencian people consider Valencian different from Catalan. This position is promoted by people who do not use Valencian regularly. Furthermore, the data indicates that younger generations educated in Valencian are much less likely to hold these views. A minority of Valencian scholars active in fields other than linguistics defends the position of the Royal Academy of Valencian Culture (Acadèmia de Cultura Valenciana, RACV), which uses for Valencian a standard independent from Catalan.

This clash of opinions has sparked much controversy. For example, during the drafting of the European Constitution in 2004, the Spanish government supplied the EU with translations of the text into Basque, Galician, Catalan, and Valencian, but the latter two were identical.

Word choices
Despite its relative lexical unity, the two dialectal blocks of Catalan (Eastern and Western) show some differences in word choices. Any lexical divergence within any of the two groups can be explained as an archaism. Also, usually Central Catalan acts as an innovative element.

Literary Catalan allows the use of words from different dialects, except those of very restricted use. However, from the 19th century onwards, there has been a tendency towards favoring words of Northern dialects to the detriment of others,

Latin and Greek loanwords
Like other languages, Catalan has a large list of loanwords from Greek and Latin. This process started very early, and one can find such examples in Ramon Llull's work. In the 14th and 15th centuries Catalan had a far greater number of Greco-Latin loanwords than other Romance languages, as is attested for example in Roís de Corella's writings. The incorporation of learned, or "bookish" words from its own ancestor language, Latin, into Catalan is arguably another form of lexical borrowing through the influence of written language and the liturgical language of the Church. Throughout the Middle Ages and into the early modern period, most literate Catalan speakers were also literate in Latin; and thus they easily adopted Latin words into their writing—and eventually speech—in Catalan.

Word formation
The process of morphological derivation in Catalan follows the same principles as the other Romance languages, where agglutination is common. Many times, several affixes are appended to a preexisting lexeme, and some sound alternations can occur, for example elèctric ("electrical") vs. electricitat. Prefixes are usually appended to verbs, as in preveure ("foresee").

There is greater regularity in the process of word-compounding, where one can find compounded words formed much like those in English.

Writing system

Catalan uses the Latin script, with some added symbols and digraphs. The Catalan orthography is systematic and largely phonologically based. Standardization of Catalan was among the topics discussed during the First International Congress of the Catalan Language, held in Barcelona October 1906. Subsequently, the Philological Section of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans (IEC, founded in 1911) published the Normes ortogràfiques in 1913 under the direction of Antoni Maria Alcover and Pompeu Fabra. In 1932, Valencian writers and intellectuals gathered in Castelló de la Plana to make a formal adoption of the so-called Normes de Castelló, a set of guidelines following Pompeu Fabra's Catalan language norms.

Grammar
The grammar of Catalan is similar to other Romance languages. Features include:
 * Use of definite and indefinite articles.
 * Nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and articles are inflected for gender (masculine and feminine), and number (singular and plural). There is no case inflexion, except in pronouns.
 * Verbs are highly inflected for person, number, tense, aspect, and mood (including a subjunctive).
 * There are no modal auxiliaries.
 * Word order is freer than in English.

Gender and number inflection
In gender inflection, the most notable feature is (compared to Portuguese, Spanish or Italian), the loss of the typical masculine suffix -o. Thus, the alternance of -o/-a, has been replaced by ø/-a. There are only a few exceptions, like minso/minsa ("scarce"). Many not completely predictable morphological alternations may occur, such as:
 * Affrication: boig/boj a ("insane") vs. lleig/lletj a ("ugly")
 * Loss of n: pla/plan a ("flat") vs. segon/segon a ("second")
 * Final obstruent devoicing: sentit/sentid a ("felt") vs. dit/dit a ("said")

Catalan has few suppletive couplets, like Italian and Spanish, and unlike French. Thus, Catalan has noi/noia ("boy"/"girl") and gall/gallina ("cock"/"hen"), whereas French has garçon/fille and coq/poule.

There is a tendency to abandon traditionally gender-invariable adjectives in favor of marked ones, something prevalent in Occitan and French. Thus, one can find bullent/bullenta ("boiling") in contrast with traditional bullent/bullent.

As in the other Western Romance languages, the main plural expression is the suffix -s, which may create morphological alternations similar to the ones found in gender inflection, albeit more rarely. The most important one is the addition of -o- before certain consonant groups, a phonetic phenomenon that does not affect feminine forms: el pols/els polsos ("the pulse"/"the pulses") vs. la pols/les pols ("the dust"/"the dusts").

Determiners

The inflection of determinatives is complex, specially because of the high number of elisions, but is similar to the neighboring languages. Catalan has more contractions of preposition + article than Spanish, like dels ("of + the [plural]"), but not as many as Italian (which has sul, col, nel, etc.).

Central Catalan has abandoned almost completely unstressed possessives (mon, etc.) in favor of constructions of article + stressed forms (el meu, etc.), a feature shared with Italian.

Personal pronouns
The morphology of Catalan personal pronouns is complex, especially in unstressed forms, which are numerous (13 distinct forms, compared to 11 in Spanish or 9 in Italian). Features include the gender-neutral ho and the great degree of freedom when combining different unstressed pronouns (65 combinations).

Catalan pronouns exhibit T–V distinction, like all other Romance languages (and most European languages, but not Modern English). This feature implies the use of a different set of second person pronouns for formality.

This flexibility allows Catalan to use extraposition extensively, much more than French or Spanish. Thus, Catalan can have m'hi recomanaren ("they recommended me to him"), whereas in French one must say ils m'ont recommandé à lui, and Spanish me recomendaron a él. This allows the placement of almost any nominal term as a sentence topic, without having to use so often the passive voice (as in French or English), or identifying the direct object with a preposition (as in Spanish).

Verbs
Like all the Romance languages, Catalan verbal inflection is more complex than the nominal. Suffixation is omnipresent, whereas morphological alternations play a secondary role. Vowel alternances are active, as well as infixation and suppletion. However, these are not as productive as in Spanish, and are mostly restricted to irregular verbs.

The Catalan verbal system is basically common to all Western Romance, except that most dialects have replaced the synthetic indicative perfect with a periphrastic form of anar ("to go") + infinitive.

Catalan verbs are traditionally divided into three conjugations, with vowel themes -a-, -e-, -i-, the last two being split into two subtypes. However, this division is mostly theoretical. Only the first conjugation is nowadays productive (with about 3500 common verbs), whereas the third (the subtype of servir, with about 700 common verbs) is semiproductive. The verbs of the second conjugation are fewer than 100, and it is not possible to create new ones, except by compounding.

Syntax
The grammar of Catalan follows the general pattern of Western Romance languages. The primary word order is subject–verb–object. However, word order is very flexible. Commonly, verb-subject constructions are used to achieve a semantic effect. The sentence "The train has arrived" could be translated as Ha arribat el tren or El tren ha arribat. Both sentences mean "the train has arrived", but the former puts a focus on the train, while the latter puts a focus on the arrival. This subtle distinction is described as "what you might say while waiting in the station" versus "what you might say on the train."

Catalan names
In Spain, every person officially has two surnames, one of which is the father's first surname and the other is the mother's first surname. The law contemplates the possibility of joining both surnames with the Catalan conjunction i ("and").

Sample text
Selected text from Manuel de Pedrolo's 1970 novel Un amor fora ciutat ("A love affair outside the city").

title: Catalan language