Copyright

Introduction
Copyright is a form of intellectual property protection provided by the laws of the United States (Title 17, of the United States Code) 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 This protection is available to both published works and unpublished works.

Copyright is secured automatically when the work is created, and a work is created when it is fixed in a copy or phonorecord for the first time.

Purpose of Copyright
The U.S. Constitution provides that Congress has the power to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." The framers of the Constitution did not discuss this clause at any length prior to or after its adoption. The purpose of the clause was described in the Federalist Papers by James Madison:
 * The utility of this power will scarcely be questioned. The copyright of authors has been solemnly adjudged, in Great Britain, to be a right of common law.  The right to useful inventions seems with equal reason to belong to the inventors. The public good fully coincides in both cases with the claims of individuals.

The Constitution outlines both the goal that Congress may try to achieve (to promote the progress of science and useful arts) and the means by which they may accomplish it (by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries). The Supreme Court has often spoken about the purpose of copyright:
 * [I]t should not be forgotten that the Framers intended copyright itself to be the engine of free expression. By establishing a marketable right to the use of one's expression, copyright supplies the economic incentive to create and disseminate ideas.
 * The primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of authors, but "[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." To this end, copyright assures authors the right in their original expression, but encourages others to build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by a work.
 * The copyright law, like the patent statutes, makes reward to the owner a secondary consideration . . . . It is said that reward to the author or artist serves to induce release to the public of the products of his creative genius.

Congress also interpreted the clause when it enacted the Copyright Act of 1909:
 * The enactment of copyright legislation by Congress under the terms of the Constitution is not based upon any natural right that the author has in his writings, . . . but upon the ground that the welfare of the public will be served and progress of science and useful arts will be promoted by securing to authors for limited periods the exclusive rights to their writings . . ..

By granting authors exclusive rights, the authors receive the benefit of economic rewards and the public receives the benefit of literature, music and other creative works that might not otherwise be created or disseminated. The public also benefits from the limited scope and duration of the rights granted. The free flow of ideas is promoted by the denial of protection for facts and ideas. The granting of exclusive rights to the author "does not preclude others from using the ideas or information revealed by the author's work."

Maintaining an appropriate balance between protecting works and incentives for creators of works, on the one hand, and disseminating knowledge and information to the public, on the other, is a constant theme throughout the history of copyright law.

Copyright law imposes no obligation upon copyright owners to make their works available. While it is hoped that the potential economic benefits to doing so will induce them, copyright owners are not obligated to provide access to their works &mdash; either during the term of protection or after. Hence, unpublished works never distributed to the public are granted as much (if not more) protection as published works. However, once an author publishes a work, copies of the work must be deposited with the Library of Congress for the benefit of the public.

Exclusive Right of Copyright Owner
Section 106 of the 1976 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, and sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work; and
 * In the case of sound recordings, to perform the work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.

In addition, certain authors of works of visual art have the rights of attribution and integrity as described in section 106A of the 1976 Copyright Act.

Copyright Infringement
It is illegal for anyone to violate any of the exclusive rights provided by the copyright law to the owner of the copyright. Such violations are referred to as copyright infringement.

Although civil law protects all the copyright owner's exclusive rights, criminal law primarily focuses on the rights of distribution and reproduction. Those convicted of criminal copyright infringement face up to five years' imprisonment and a $250,000 fine. In applying the criminal copyright statutes, civil precedents are often helpful.

Limitations on Copyright Rights
These rights, however, are not unlimited in scope. Sections 107 through 121 of the 1976 Copyright Act establish 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 statutory basis in section 107 of the 1976 Copyright Act. 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 statutory conditions.

Categories Excluded from Copyright Protection
Not everything can be protected by copyright law. Categories of material that generally are not eligible for federal copyright protection including:


 * Works that have not been fixed in a tangible medium of expression (for example, choreographic works that have not been notated or recorded, or improvisational speeches or performances that have not been written or recorded);
 * Titles, names, short phrases, and slogans; familiar symbols or designs; mere variations of typographic ornamentation, lettering, or coloring; mere listings of ingredients or contents (these may be protected by trademark law if they meet certain criteria);
 * Ideas, procedures, methods, systems, processes, concepts, principles, discoveries, or devices, as distinguished from a description, explanation, or illustration; and
 * Works consisting entirely of information that is common property and containing no original authorship (for example: standard calendars, height and weight charts, tape measures and rulers, and lists or tables taken from public documents or other common sources).

Federal Preemption
In addition to being primarily statutory, copyright law is also primarily a matter of federal law. For most of the history of the United States, state and common law copyright protections coexisted with federal copyright laws. But the Copyright Act of 1976 amended Title 17 to preempt state laws that provide rights "equivalent to" rights granted under federal copyright law.

Despite this preemption, copyright law continues to be intertwined with state law in certain cases, such as those involving license agreements and other contracts governing ownership and use of copyrighted works. State copyright law also continues to apply to sound recordings recorded before 1972, because sound recordings were not protected by federal copyright law until 1972. Consequently, pre-1972 sound recordings may still be protected by state copyrights until 2067. See La Cienega Music Co. v. ZZ Top, 53 F.3d 950 (9th Cir. 1995); 17 U.S.C. §301(c).