What Are Some Examples of Material Not Protected Under Copyright Law?
The right of the federal government to protect original works of authorship comes out of Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution. In order to promote the arts, the U.S. Congress is empowered to protect a creator's exclusive use of original works. In the judgment in the Supreme Court case Feist vs. Rural Telephone, Justice Sandra Day O'Conner wrote, "the writings which are to be protected are the fruits of intellectual labor, embodied in the form of books, prints, engravings, and the like." While this covers a broad range of work, naturally some material is not protected under copyright law.
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Intangible Works
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Copyright cannot be registered for works that have not been put into a final fixed or permanent form. This includes any sort of work that has not been either recorded or notated. For example, an improvisational speech that has not been recorded or written down is considered intangible, and therefore copyright cannot be claimed by the maker of the speech.
Phrases
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Copyright protection goes to the creator of substantial works, but smaller items that fall into the category of mere phrases cannot be copyrighted. This includes titles of works, slogans and other short phrases. Also in this category are recipes that are a mere list of ingredients, symbols, and typographic embellishment, some of which might be eligible for a trademark but not a copyright.
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Useful Articles
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Material objects that have been constructed and may be eligible for patent protection are not protected by copyright law. This keeps the two kinds of intellectual property protections distinct. For example, an original design on a shirt can be copyrighted, but the shirt itself cannot, even if it is an entirely new kind of shirt that represents a unique invention. Similarly, a new machine that prints shirt designs could possibly be patented, but as a useful article it does not receive copyright protection.
Concepts
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Ideas and concepts cannot be copyrighted, even if a work containing the ideas can. Similarly, principles or discoveries, scientific or otherwise, cannot be copyrighted. Procedures, methods, systems or processes, all of which can be incorporated into the patent of an invention, cannot, however, be protected by copyright.
Unoriginal Works
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To be eligible for copyright, a work must be original. In fact, original authorship is the source of all copyright. For copyright purposes, a work that consists of unoriginal material exclusively and contains no original authorship cannot be protected under copyright law. For example, a standard calendar cannot be copyrighted unless it contains material authorship. Material taken from public documents or other public-domain sources, including lists, tables and charts, is not considered original and is not eligible for copyright.
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