\nway to protect the idea with a copyright. (That is the job of patents \u2013 a much
\nprotect what we call it (that is the brand or the source indicating language by
\n Therefore,
\nsometimes it is not easy to establish if the work is an \u201coriginal work of
\nauthorship\u201d. To be original, the work
\nmust be produced by \u201cthe author\u2019s own intellectual effort,\u201d as opposed to
\nmerely copying a preexisting work. But
\nit does not necessarily have to be novel (meaning new, innovative); it just
\nmust have an appreciable amount of creative authorship. Usually, however, the level of creativity
\nrequired is exceptionally low. You
\ncan\u2019t protect a one word \u201ccomposition\u201d or a short bumper-sticker phrase. But
\njust about anything else you write will be original, as long as you\u2019re not
\ncopying the writing of someone else. The
\nbest example of work which may not qualify for originality purposes may be just
\ncompiling a list, for instance. As the courts see it, \u201cthe sweat of the brow\u201d
\nthat you put into your work won\u2019t necessarily make it original. But writing just about anything in your own
\nwords satisfies \u201coriginality\u201d. The gamut of protection runs from courts finding
\na compilation of non-protectable facts is copyrightable if it \u201cfeatures an
\noriginal selection and arrangement of facts\u201d to finding even an original
\nexpression not protectable \u201cwhen there is essentially only one way to express
\nan idea\u201d.<\/div>\n
\n Copyright protection
\nactually conveys more than just one right.
\nThe author has the right to reproduce her work, prepare derivative
\nworks, distribute copies of the work to the public (by sale, or lease, or
\nrental or lending), perform the work publicly, display it publicly and perform
\nit publicly by means of digital transmission.
\nAs you can imagine there have been all kinds of lawsuits concerning the
\ndefinition and extent of these rights. The
\nCopyright Law was recently revised (1998) to make the rights clear in the digital
\nmillennium. In fact the revised law is
\ncalled The Digital Millennium Copyright Law.
\n(Our forefathers did not foresee ebooks \u2013 as omniscient as they seemed
\nto be.)<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n \u201cFor how
\nlong do these rights last?\u201d you ask.
\nFor works created on or after January 1, 1978 for individual authors,
\ncopyright protection lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years. (This term was just recently extended from
\nauthor\u2019s life plus 50 years by the 1998 revision). For corporate authors, the term was extended
\nto 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication. <\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n The author
\nowns the copyright. Simple, right? Not so fast!
\nWhat about your web site that you paid a graphic designer to create copy
\nand art for? Do you own that? Are you sure?
\nThere is such a thing as a \u201cwork for hire\u201d if someone is explicitly
\nhired to prepare a work, then the employer, or person who hired the author owns
\nthe copyright. But sometimes it is
\ndifficult to establish that the arrangement truly is a work for hire. <\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n A work for
\nhire usually is defined as a work prepared by an employee within the scope of
\nhis or her employment; or a work specially commissioned for use as a
\ncontribution to a collective work. Are
\nyou thinking author\/illustrator? Well,
\nyou are right, but unless the parties agree in a written instrument signed by
\neach party that the work shall be considered a work for hire, the illustrator,
\neven if hired by the author, probably still has the right to make derivative
\nworks and reproduce the illustrations apart from the published book.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n And to add
\nto your agita, websites created by independent contractors are NOT considered
\nworks for hire, so if you don\u2019t want anyone else to have the same logo as you
\nand the same web design, you must be sure to require a written copyright assignment
\nfrom your web designer.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n Gail
\nrecently featured an interesting audio clip from NPR about the fact that the
\nsong Happy Birthday still enjoys copyright protection. Even though the music, originally composed by
\nthe Hill sisters who were savvy enough to obtain copyright protection, just
\nrecently went into the public domain, the words are still protected since the
\ncopyright was assigned to a publishing company.
\nWhich leads me to my point \u2013 copyrights are transferable by written
\nagreement. <\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n These days
\nit is possible to claim copyrights in a work simply by putting the author\u2019s
\nname and the date on the (ideally) first publication or public
\ndisplay\/performance of the work. Unlike
\nthe old days, it is not necessary to register the copyright with the Library of
\nCongress. But registration brings
\nadditional rights, and makes the copyrights more easily enforceable. Hence the double-edged sword \u2013 be careful
\nwhere you garner your ideas and your material \u2013 there are only limited
\ncircumstances that allow you to use copyrighted material without permission of
\nthe author, like for educational purposes, news, or parody. You cannot use any copyrighted material for
\nyour own economic benefit. The simple
\nrule: Always make sure your work reflects your own creative intellectual
\neffort.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nAny questions? Gail has invited me to stay tuned to help you
\nprocess this information. And you can
\nalways reach me through the website for my Enjella\u2122 children\u2019s book series \u2013
www.enjella.com<\/a>, or jane@enjella.com. <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here is the promised guest post on copyright, very kindly contributed by Jane Collen, who asked me to add the website of her law firm, where you’ll find more information: http:\/\/www.collenip.com\/. I visited the site and found it most helpful to click on “News and Events” and then on “Podcasts and Blogs” and then on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[83],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":346,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions\/346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}