More Copyright Facts
Copyright protection begins as soon as an original work is
fixed in a tangible medium of expression.
Publication and/or registration of
the work is not required to trigger copyright protection. Drafts, home movies,
family pictures, letters, etc., as well as more formal works, are fully
protected by copyright as soon as they are fixed. The level of originality
required is minimal. When creators speak of "copyrighting" their
work, they are probably actually referring to registering their work with
the United States Copyright Office.
Registering the work, while not necessary to obtain full copyright protection,
is relatively straight-forward, inexpensive, and recommended. If a work is registered in a timely fashion (within three months of publication or before an infringement occurs), a copyright holder who prevails in a subsequent infringement lawsuit may ask the court to award "statutory" damages ($30,000 to $150,000 per infringement) as well as attorney's fees. If the infringed work had not been timely registered, the copyright holder cannot request statutory damages but must instead prove actual damages--a difficult and considerably less lucrative task.
Given that copyright protection begins the moment an original work is fixed in a tangible medium of expression, unpublished works are currently fully protected by copyright. In an effort to end what amounts to perpetual protection, Congress has devised a scheme to allow unpublished works to begin entering the public domain in a gradual fashion. Unpublished works began to enter the public domain on December 31, 2002 as long as the creator had been dead for at least 70 years. At the end of each subsequent year, additional works meeting these criteria will enter the public domain.
Facts and ideas are not protected under copyright law. Only the particular "expression" of a fact or an idea is copyrighted.
The First Sale Doctrine
A distinction not always recognized is that ownership of the physical item, such as a book or a CD, is not the same as owning the copyright to the work embodied in that item. Under the first sale doctrine, ownership of a physical copy of a copyrighted work, like a book, permits lending the item, reselling the item, disposing of the item, burning the item, and so forth, but it does not permit copying the item in its entirety. That is because the transfer of the physical copy does not include transfer of the copyright to the work. A transfer or assignment of copyright must be signed and in writing to be valid [Sample Transfer Form]. |
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February 4, 2009
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