Copyright Rules
The first copyright laws in the United States were passed in 1790 to protect written works. The present version of the United States Copyright Act was enacted by Congress in 1976 and updated by President Clinton in 1998. During the mid- to late 20th century, copyright protection was extended to a number of media, including music and computer code. Presently, nearly all original work is inherently protected by copyright. However, there are exceptions to copyright. Additionally, there are responsibilities associated with copyright, if the copyright holder wishes to retain the rights to control over the material.
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Function
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Copyright is designed to protect the rights of the copyright holder to the use, reproduction and distribution of original material in a fixed form. In most instances, the creator of original material is entitled to its copyright protection. However, copyright can be assigned, as in a "work made for hire" arrangement where the creator agrees to assign the rights to his work, usually in exchange for wages or other monetary compensation. Copyright can also be assigned to a partnership, collaboration or even a corporation if an original work is created by more than one person.
General Copyright Rules
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The work in question must be original and must exist in a fixed form in order to be eligible for copyright protection. The fixed form may be written text, computer code, a musical score, film, a painting or some other medium. For original works created after January 1, 1978, where the copyright is held by the creator, copyright protection endures for the life of the creator plus 70 years.
For works created before 1978 where copyright protection is held by the creator, the term of copyright varies depending on a number of conditions. For an anonymous or pseudonymous work, or a work made for hire, copyright protection lasts for 95 years after the first publication of the work or 120 years from the date of creation, whichever term expires sooner.
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Fair Use Exception
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Fair use applies to the legitimate duplication of a portion of a copyrighted work for the purposes of education or commentary. This exception to copyright was established by Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act to balance the rights of copyright holders with rightful access to intellectual property. The act lists the steps of a four-part test to be applied to determine whether the fair use doctrine applies to a given use or duplication of copyrighted material: the purpose of the use (especially nonprofit or educational use), the nature of the copyrighted material, the proportion of the work being reproduced and any detrimental effect on the monetary value of the work for the copyright holder.
Parody Exception
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The parody exception is a special subset of fair use. While parody has existed throughout American history, the right to duplicate material in order to create a spoof or critique was firmly established in the 1994 Supreme Court case Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. This case stated that the copyright for the song "Oh Pretty Woman," originally written by Roy Orbison and William Dees, was not infringed by the parody performed by 2 Live Crew, with front man Luther Campbell.
Copyright Protection and Infringement
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Besides the exceptions listed above, in most instances reproducing copyrighted material, without the permission of the copyright holder, even with attribution, constitutes a case of copyright infringement. This has become a particularly challenging problem with the rise of the Internet and the ease of copying, reproducing and distributing copyrighted material without permission or even detection.
However, copyright holders have a responsibility to preserve their copyrights. Copyrighted material should bear a copyright mark with the year of copyright in every instance of publication. However, works without a copyright mark do not automatically forfeit copyright protection. Likewise, while registration with the U.S. Copyright office grants the copyright holder a number of legal protections not available for unregistered works, it is not necessary for material to be registered in order to be eligible for copyright protection. Nonetheless, it falls on the copyright holder to bring potential copyright infringement to the attention of proper authorities.
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