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I INTRODUCTION
Copyright, branch of law granting authors the exclusive privilege to reproduce, distribute, perform, or display their creative works. The goal of copyright law is to encourage authors to invest effort in creating new works of art and literature. Copyright is one branch of the larger legal field known as intellectual property, which also includes trademark and patent law. Copyright law is the legal foundation protecting the work of many major industries, including book publishing, motion-picture production, music recording, and computer software development. These industries account for considerable economic activity in the United States, making copyright law a field of enormous economic importance.
Not every product of the human imagination is eligible for copyright. To qualify for copyright protection, a work must be both fixed and original. The law considers a work to be fixed if it is recorded in some permanent format. Acceptable ways of fixing a work include writing it down, storing it on a computer floppy disk, recording it on videotape, or sculpting it in marble. If a poet thinks of a new poem and recites it to an audience before writing it down, copyright does not protect the poem because it is not fixed. To be original, the work must not be copied from previously existing material and must display at least a reasonable amount of creativity. For example, if an author writes the words “the sky is blue” on a piece of paper, copyright does not protect the words because they lack sufficient creativity. Short phrases and titles are usually not protected by copyright, but in some circumstances they may be protected by trademark law.
Copyright only protects the words, notes, or images that the creator has used. It does not protect any ideas or concepts revealed by the work. If, for example, a scientist publishes an article explaining a new process for refining oil, the copyright prevents others from copying the words of that article. It does not, however, prevent anyone else from using the process described to refine oil. To protect the process, the scientist must obtain a patent. Similarly, if a novelist writes a book about a man obsessed about killing a whale, other people may write their own books on the same subject, as long as they do not use the exact words or a closely similar plot.
II HISTORY OF COPYRIGHT
Before the invention of the printing press in Europe in the 15th century, copyright law did not exist. Books were expensive and difficult to produce and few people knew how to read, so there was little need for copyright protections. By the mid-1500’s, however, books had become cheaper and more widely available in Europe. To reduce the risk of adversaries printing politically dangerous books, the royal government of England granted a publishing monopoly to a group of book publishers, who all belonged to a guild called the Stationers’ Company. These publishers all depended on the favor of the English crown for their existence, and so they only published materials that did not offend the royal authorities. Additionally, whenever one member of the guild obtained the rights to publish a book, all other members agreed to refrain from competition. This private arrangement was an early form of copyright. It was replaced in 1710 when the British Parliament passed a law called the Statute of Anne, named for Queen Anne, who reigned in England from 1702 to 1714. This was the first real copyright law in the modern sense. It granted authors the exclusive right to authorize the printing or reprinting of books for a limited number of years.
The Constitutional Convention delegates who drafted the U.S. Constitution in 1787 were familiar with the Statute of Anne and with the importance of copyright as an incentive for authors to create new works. In Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, they included a clause giving the Congress of the United States 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.” This provision gave the federal government the power to enact copyright and patent statutes. Congress adopted the first U.S. copyright law in 1790. The copyright law has been amended frequently, often in reaction to new inventions, such as photography and the development of motion pictures. Congress made a major revision to U.S. law in the Copyright Act of 1909, which remained in effect until January 1, 1978, when it was replaced by the Copyright Act of 1976. Although Congress has amended the 1976 act often, this statute continues to be the legal basis for copyright protection in the United States.
III COPYRIGHT IN THE UNITED STATES
Although the Copyright Act of 1909 no longer applies to new copyrights, it still functions as U.S. law in certain cases. This is because the copyright status of a work is governed by the law in effect at the time the work was created. Consequently, for works created before 1978, such as the movie The Wizard of Oz (1939) and the music of American singer Elvis Presley, the 1909 law applies. Under that law, federal copyright protection began when the work was first published. Publication required the distribution of copies of the work to the public. After publication, the work was entitled to 28 years of copyright protection. The copyright could also be renewed for a second term of 28 years, providing a maximum term of 56 years.
Under the 1976 act, copyright protection begins as soon as the work is fixed (recorded), regardless of whether it is published. The copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 50 years. If a work is created by an employee in the normal course of a job, however, the copyright belongs to the employer and lasts 75 years from publication or 100 years from creation, whichever comes first. The 1976 act gives a special term—75 years from publication—to works published before January 1, 1978, but whose copyrights had not yet expired by that date. Once a copyright expires, the work enters the public domain and anyone can copy it.
A Subject Matter
Under the 1976 act, copyright extends to all “works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression.” This broad definition includes literary works of all kinds, including fiction, nonfiction, prose, and poetry. It also includes visual arts, such as a painting or sculpture; audiovisual works, such as a television program or motion picture; musical compositions; dramatic works, such as a theater production or works of choreography and pantomime; and sound recordings (recordings of music, speech, or other sounds). Even computer programs and works of architecture are within the scope of the statute. However, works prepared by government employees, such as court opinions, acts of Congress, and other government documents, are not protected by the copyright law. Anyone may reproduce these works without obtaining permission.
B Notice and Registration
A copyright notice informs the public that a given work is copyrighted. The notice is placed in each published copy of the protected work and consists of either the word copyright, the abbreviation copr. or the symbol ©, accompanied by the name of the copyright owner and the date of first publication. For sound recordings, the symbol ~~ is used instead of the symbol ©. Under the 1909 act, publication of a work without a proper copyright notice resulted in a complete loss of copyright protection. Under the 1976 act, omission of notice also originally resulted in a loss of copyright protection, but this statute gave the author a right to correct the error by following certain specified procedures. Congress changed this rule in 1988. For all works published after March 1, 1989, copyright notice is optional, though highly recommended.
A copyright owner may register a claim of ownership with the U.S. Copyright Office in Washington, D.C. To register, the owner must fill out an application, pay a fee, and, if the work is published, send two complete copies of the work. The copies become part of the collection of the Library of Congress. Although copyright registration is theoretically optional, the copyright owner cannot go to court to enforce any rights until the work has been registered. In addition, early copyright registration allows an author more options in any litigation to enforce the copyright.
C Rights of Copyright Owners and Licensing
The Copyright Act of 1976 gives copyright owners five exclusive rights. These rights are (1) only the copyright owner may reproduce or make copies of the work; (2) only the copyright owner may prepare adaptations of the work, such as preparing a translation of a book originally written in English or preparing a movie screenplay based on a novel; (3) only the copyright owner may distribute copies of the work to the public; (4) the copyright owner has the exclusive right to perform the work in public; and (5) only the copyright owner may display the work in public. However, these rights are subject to many exceptions, which are detailed in the copyright act. For instance, certain nonprofit organizations can perform certain copyrighted works without the permission of the copyright owner, and libraries can make copies of damaged books without violating the copyright statute. The statute also permits owners of copies of computer software to make one copy as a backup.
Copyright owners often cannot or do not want to use all their rights by themselves. For example, the author of a novel may have no way to turn that work into a motion picture or translate it into a foreign language. Copyright law permits a copyright owner to enter into agreements that allow others to use some or all of the owner’s rights in return for payment. These transactions are called copyright licenses. Licensing greatly increases the ability of the copyright owner to make money from the work. For example, the author of a novel could license one publisher to print the work in hardbound copies, license another to reproduce and distribute paperback copies, and could also license a motion-picture company to create a movie based on the novel. The copyright owner can also sell the copyright entirely. This is called an assignment.
Copyright owners have the right to terminate any licenses and assignments after a certain number of years. If the author made the assignment or license after January 1, 1978, the author could terminate the arrangement 35 years after the relevant transaction. For assignments or licenses made before that date, the author can terminate the arrangement 56 years after the work was first published. This permits the copyright owner to renegotiate the terms of the transaction if the work turns out to be more commercially valuable than the parties had originally anticipated.
In certain cases, the statute allows parties to use copyrighted works without having to negotiate a license with the copyright owner, provided they pay a set fee, called a royalty, determined by the government. This is known as a compulsory license. The Copyright Act of 1976 gives cable television systems and satellite television systems this type of compulsory license. It also grants a compulsory license to record companies to use musical compositions, once the copyright owner has authorized at least one person to make recordings of the work. The royalty amounts are set by groups called Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panels of the U.S. Copyright Office.
D Infringement
An infringement of a copyright is the reproduction, distribution, performance, or display of any copyrighted work without permission of the copyright owner or without a compulsory license. For example, making a copy of the text of a book or performing a play without permission would be infringements. Infringement does not necessarily require absolute similarity to the copyrighted work.
For example, a novel based on the copyrighted work of another author may constitute an infringement, even if it does not reproduce the original novel word for word. The test for infringement is whether an ordinary observer would consider the second version “substantially similar” to the copyrighted work. This definition of similarity is sufficiently vague that courts reinterpret it with respect to each claim of copyright infringement.
Copyright infringements are usually dealt with in civil lawsuits in federal court. The law provides several remedies to copyright owners who prove infringement against their work. In such a case, the court may order an injunction against future infringement, which requires the infringing party to refrain from committing further violations of the copyright. The court may also order the destruction of infringing copies; reimbursement for any financial loss suffered by the copyright owner; transfer of profits made from the sale of infringing copies; and payment of specific damages, plus court costs and attorneys’ fees. If the infringement was intentional, the infringing party can be subject to criminal penalties as well, which include fines and possible imprisonment.
E Fair Use
A very important exception to the rule of copyright infringement is the concept known as fair use. Under this principle, the law permits the use of portions of copyrighted works for such purposes as criticism, comment, teaching, and research, even without permission of the copyright owner. In deciding whether a use is a fair use, courts consider such factors as the purpose of the use, the nature of the work, the amount of the work taken, and the effect it will have on the value of the original work. Some examples of fair use include quoting excerpts from a book in a review, scholarly article, or term paper; copying and distributing a newspaper article to illustrate an educational lesson; and using portions of a work in a parody of that work, such as a spoof version of a song. The Supreme Court of the United States has held that it is also fair use to use a home videocassette recorder to make copies of television programs and movies for later viewing.
IV INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT
Almost every nation has some form of copyright protection for authors and artists. Several important international treaties also deal with copyright law among nations. The first and perhaps the most important international treaty concerning copyright law is called the Berne Convention, first adopted in Bern (Berne), Switzerland, in 1886 and revised several times since. Most countries of the world are members of the Berne Convention, including the United States and Canada.
Members of the Berne Convention grant copyright protection to works of authors who are citizens of any member country. The treaty also forbids members from placing conditions on copyright protection based on the observance of formalities, such as registration of the copyright or placement of the copyright notice on copies of the work. Thus, although no such thing as an international copyright exists, the Berne Convention makes it easy for an author to obtain copyright protection in many nations.
In 1994 most countries of the world signed another important treaty dealing with copyright law. This agreement, called the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), clarified several aspects of copyright law and strengthened copyright protections internationally.
Some nations of the world have weak copyright laws or few resources devoted to enforce those laws. These countries often have a large market for counterfeit goods made in violation of the copyright protections of authors. Unauthorized recordings of music on compact discs, computer software, and videocassettes of movies are often available at very low prices in these countries. This activity costs American copyright owners billions of dollars each year in sales and royalties. To protect these copyright owners, the United States attempts to persuade other countries to enforce copyright laws vigorously. This issue has been a source of particular tension between the United States and China. Although the Chinese government has signed agreements promising to combat copyright piracy, copyright violation continues to be a serious problem there. Certain provisions of the TRIPS agreement may help the United States persuade foreign governments to fight piracy more vigorously.
Contributed By:
Roger E. Schechter
"Copyright," Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 2000. © 1993-1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.[ This Message was edited by: cabosuntanning on 2003-07-10 15:44 ] |