copyright

intellectual property

IP is a person’s product of the mind, personality, uniqueness, trademarks, and trade secrets

intellectual property examples

copyright, trademarks, patents, tradesecrets

protection - US constitution

such powers include the power to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing fro a limited time to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writing and discoveries

US code title 17

government seeks to protect an original work of authorship fixed in a tangible medium, must be an original work of authorship or a work that possesses at least some minimal degree of creativity, not just and idea but an expression of an idea

tangible medium of expression

motion pictures/television programs, podcasts/yt videos/other audiovisual works, literary works such as screenplays, books poems, and magazine articles, photographs, musical works (including lyrics), websites, sound recordings

minimal degree of creativity

the extremely low threshold established by Supreme Court for a work to be considered “original” and thus copyrightable

who is qualified to be an author under copyright

the creator of the work is the author unless the work is created in the author’s capacity as an employee within the course and scope of their employment. or in some limited cases the author is the one who commissions a work from another pursuant to a written agreement as a “work made for hire”

work made for hire

a work prepared by an employee within the scope of their employment. or. work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work for hire

joint author

they have the right to grant non-exclusive licenses to others, they have an equal undivided interest in copyright, they are required to pay other joint authors an equal share of any sale or license, they all have duty to avoid destroying the work

joint author note

can’t do an implied-in-fact contract, the copyright is the producer’s money so you want to control the copyright, try to avoid this at all costs, if a producer goes to the writer with an idea and the writer says they’ll write it down for him, the writer will end up owning it so do not do that

human protection lasts for

life of the author + 70 years

non-human protection lasts for

95 years from the date of publication or 120 years from date of creation (whichever is shorter)

publication

when one or more copies are distributed to public by sale, rental, lease, and lending

rights for copyright owners

to make copies of the work, to distribute the work, to perform the work publicly, to create derivatives of the works

public domain

works in which the copyright registration has expired, works created by the US government, abandoned works, historical facts and theories, raw data, titles/names/short phrases/slogans, “scenes a faire” (common, recurring scenes typical of an artistic genre)

why you should register your copyright

establishes date of creation of work, needed to file federal court claim, eligibility for statutory damages, attorney, and costs of suit, you can mail it to yourself to establish a date when registering your copyright