Which Types of Work Does Copyright Law Protect?

The purpose of a copyright is to provide easy access to legal documentation that proves who the creator of a piece is. Therefore, copyright law can be used to protect multiple types of physical works and types of creators of those works.

Works

Copyright law is designed to protect material works including written documents, music, photographs, drawn or painted images and computer programming code.

Published

Many people believe that copyright law protection is only for published works but unpublished works are eligible for copyright law protection too.

Americans

Americans can apply for copyright protection for a work within the United States and have that work protected in several nations.

Foreigners

Any work a foreigner submits to the U.S. copyright office or to a copyright-granting agency in a nation with which the United States has a copyright honoring agreement is protected by copyright law.

Minors

Everyone who submits eligible work for United States copyright law protection, including persons younger than 18 years old, will receive copyright protection.