What is a Copyright?

Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U. S. Code - see link in the Resource Box to the right) to the authors of "original works of authorship," including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works.

Sound recordings are defined in the law as "works that result from the fixation of a series of musical, spoken, or other sounds, but not including the sounds accompanying a motion picture or other audiovisual work."

The Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to do and to authorize others to do the following:

• To reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords.
• To prepare derivative works based upon the work.
• To distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending.
• To perform the work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works.
• To display the work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work.
• To perform the work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission in the case of sound recordings.

In addition, certain authors of works of visual art have the rights of attribution and integrity as described in the Copyright Act.

It is illegal for anyone to violate any of the rights provided by the copyright law to the owner of copyright. These rights, however, are not unlimited in scope. The Copyright Act establishes limitations on these rights.

In some cases, these limitations are specified exemptions from copyright liability. One major limitation is the doctrine of "fair use," which is given a legal basis in the Copyright Act of 1976.

In other instances, the limitation takes the form of a "compulsory license" under which certain limited uses of copyrighted works are permitted upon payment of specified royalties and compliance with conditions set out in the law.