COPYRIGHT LAW

A copyright is a form of intellectual protection provided to the authors of “original works of authorship.” The Copyright Act (codified at Title 17 of the United States Code) states that an original work of authorship that is entitled to copyright protection includes literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works, regardless of whether they are published and unpublished. Generally speaking, a copyright gives the owner 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.