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What is a copyright and what works are
copyrightable?
A copyright is legal protection limited to an
author’s particular method of expressing an idea. The emphasis is on the
method or manner the author chooses to express the idea, not the idea
itself. The concept is to promote and protect literary and artistic
creativity for the public and includes the following kinds of works:
literary works, musical works including accompanying words, dramatic
works including any accompanying music, pantomimes and choreographic
works, pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works including nonuse design
features for articles, motion pictures and audiovisual works,
architectural works, sound recordings, and compilations of works and
derivative works.
The categories are viewed from a broad perspective.
A computer program may be registered as a literary work or a map as a
pictorial or graphic work. These protectible works must be original and
not copied and may not be so basic and elementary that they lack
sufficient creativity.
Copyright attaches to the intangible “original work
of authorship” once the work has been fixed in a tangible form. This
merely means that once the author puts his intangible or mental
impressions on paper, or any other type of recording medium, a copyright
is realized. In other words, the copyright becomes the property of the
author immediately upon expressing the idea through a medium, which can
be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated directly or with the
aid of a machine. For example, copyright protection subsists the moment
you write lyrics down on paper or record your song on a tape.
It is to be noted that the following works are
generally not eligible for copyright protection; however, they may
qualify for becoming a patent or a registered trademark (see patent
and/or trademark sections): ideas, procedures, processes, methods of
operation, systems, concepts, principles, discoveries, titles, short
phrases, slogans, familiar symbols, designs, and commonly known
information containing no original authorship.
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