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What is it?
Copyright is a form of protection provided to the authors
of Àoriginal works of authorship” including literary,
dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual
works, both published and unpublished. The 1976 Copyright
Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive
right to reproduce the copyrighted work, to prepare derivative
works, to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted
work, to perform the copyrighted work publicly, or to
display the copyrighted work publicly.
The copyright protects the form of expression rather
than the subject matter of the writing. For example, a
description of a machine could be copyrighted, but this
would only prevent others from copying the description;
it would not prevent others from writing a description
of their own or from making and using the machine. Copyrights
are registered by the
Copyright Office of the Library of Congress.
uspto.gov
The U.S. Copyright Act, is Federal legislation enacted
by Congress under its Constitutional grant of authority
to protect the writings of authors. Changing technology
has led to an ever expanding understanding of the word
"writings". The Copyright Act now reaches architectural
design, software, the graphic arts, motion pictures, and
sound recordings. See § 106 of the act. Given the
scope of the Federal legislation and its provision precluding
inconsistent state law, the field is almost exclusively
a Federal one. See § 301 of the act.
A copyright gives the owner the exclusive right to reproduce,
distribute, perform, display, or license his work. See
§ 106 of the act. The owner also receives the exclusive
right to produce or license derivatives of his or her
work. See § 201(d) of the act. Limited exceptions
to this exclusivity exist for types of "fair use",
such as book reviews. See § 107 of the act. To be
covered by copyright a work must be original and in a
concrete "medium of expression." See §
102 of the act. Under current law, works are covered whether
or not a copyright notice is attached and whether or not
the work is registered.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/copyright.html
• Copyright
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