Publications

To publish is to make publicly known, and in reference to text and images, it can mean distributing paper copies to the public, or putting the content on a website. more...

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The word publication means the act of publishing, and it also means any writing of which copies are published, and any website. Among publications are books, and periodicals, the latter including magazines, scholarly journals, and newspapers.

Computers and the internet have changed the face of publishing, lowering the cost, and allowing more people to publish, through both desktop publishing and internet publishing.

Specific publications

Some publications have to be characterized in a more specific sense and contexts. Examples:

Academic publishing; Open access publishing;

Web publishing

To publish on the Web. See website, Web template systems, Blog, etc.

Legal definition

Copyright

"Publication" is a technical term in legal contexts and especially important in copyright legislation. An author of a work generally in the initial owner of the copyright on the work. One of the copyrights granted to the author of a work is the exclusive right to publish the work.

In the United States, publication is defined as:

the distribution of copies or phonorecords of a work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending. The offering to distribute copies or phonorecords to a group of persons for purposes of further distribution, public performance, or public display, constitutes publication. A public performance or display of a work does not of itself constitute publication.

To perform or display a work "publicly" means –

(1) to perform or display it at a place open to the public or at any place where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered; or

(2) to transmit or otherwise communicate a performance or display of the work to a place specified by clause (1) or to the public, by means of any device or process, whether the members of the public capable of receiving the performance or display receive it in the same place or in separate places and at the same time or at different times.

—17 USC 101

Furthermore, the right to publish a work is an exclusive right of the copyright owner (17 USC 106), and violating this right (e.g. by disseminating copies of the work without the copyright owner's consent) is a copyright infringement (17 USC 501(a)), and the copyright owner can demand (by suing in court) that e.g. copies distributed against his will be confiscated and destroyed (17 USC 502, 17 USC 503).

Read more at Wikipedia.org