Legal advice for artists

If you are an artist or a designer, the law holds a special place for you because you are considered an author. You get to keep control, more so than any other professional, over the fruit of your labour. However, this control is a double edged sword: while you can enjoy protection when exploiting your own works, your creative process can be hindered as the law restricts to what extent you can build upon the work of others.
About time then to understand how copyright really works: Who gets it? For what work? How? And for how long? How does copyright translate from medium to medium and from adaptation to adaptation? What are are the underlying concepts? authorship, creative work, ideas, expressions? and to what extent is it possible to navigate their paradoxes?
As art students, it makes sense to understand the legal frame around creativity, not just because it makes professional sense. It's also because it allows you to get involved in the larger discussions around intellectual property. After all, law makers and the media industry invoke the figure of the artist to justify increased copyrights. Even cultural institutions can turn themselves against both artists and the public, by making false copyright claims on the works in their collections. Educating themselves, artists and designers can formulate their own responses to the urgent questions copyright poses today.