B. Federal Law
A. Exisiting Federal Statutes
"Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States to the authors of 'original works of authorship' including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works. Section 106 (link) of the 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to do and to authorize others to do the following:
•To reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
•To prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
•To distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
•To display the copyrighted work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual works, and
•In the case of sound recordings, to perform the work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission."
(http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ1.html#wci)
Copyright protection is afforded to "original works of authorship" that are part of a tangible form of expression. The categories for copyright include:
•literary works
•musical works, including any accompanying words
•dramatic works, including any accompanying music
•pantomimes and choreographic works
•pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works
•motion pictures and other audiovisual works
•sound recordings
•architectural works
Some works are not protected under United States copyright law. They include:
•works that have not been fixed in a tangible form of expression, (for example choreographic works that have not been notated or recorded, or improvisational speeches or performances that have not been written or recorded).
•Titles, names, short phrases, and slogans; familiar symbols or designs; mere variations of typographic ornamentation, lettering, or coloring; mere listing of ingredients or contents.
•Ideas, procedures, methods, systems, processes, concepts, principles, discoveries, or devices, as distinguished from a description, explanation or illustration.
•Works consisting entirely of information that is common property and containing no original authorship (for example: standard calendars, height and weight charts, tape measures and rulers, and lists or tables taken from public documents or other common sources).
It is not necessary to register in the Copyright Office to get a copyright. A copyright is automatic as soon as the work is created and when it is put into a fixed form. On-going works are copyrighted when the work is first put into a fixed form.
Works no longer have to be published to be copyrighted. The Copyright Act of 1909 required a publication before a copyright was granted. The 1976 Copyright Act defines publication as follows:
"Publication is the distribution of copies or phonorecords of a work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by lease, or lending. The offering to distribute copies or phonorecords to a group of persons for purposes of further distribution, public performance, or public display constitutes publication. A public performance or display of a work does not of itself constiute publication".
(http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ1.html#wci)
United States law does not require the use of copyright notice, but it can be helpful. Prior law to the Berne Convention did require notice, therefore, older works will bear a notice of copyright. The no notification law became effective on March 1, 1989. The copyright notice identifies the copyright owner, shows that it is protected by copyright, and lists the year of first publication. "In the event that a work infringed, if a proper notice of copyright appears on the published copy or copies to which a defendant in a copyright infringement suit had access, then no weight shall be given to such a defendant's interposition of a defense based on innocent infringement in mitigation of actual or statuatory damages, except as provided in section 504 of the coypright code."
(http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ1.html#wci)
It is the responsibility of the creator of the work to indicate copyright information on the work.
Form of Notice of Visaully Perceptible Copies
"The notice for visually perceptible copies should contain all of the following three elements:
1. The symbol © (the letter 'c' in a circle) or the word 'Copyright' or the abbreviation 'Copr.'; and
2. The year of first publication of the work.
3. The name of the owner of copyright." Example: ©1999 Suzie Webpage
(http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ1.html#wci)
Form of Notice for Phonorecords of Sound Recording
"The notice for phonorecords embodying a sound recording should contain all of the following three elements:
1. The symbol (the letter 'P' in a circle;
2. The year of first publication of the sound recording;
3. The name of the owner fo copyright."
(http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ1.html#wci)
Length of copyright protection
A work that is created on or after January 1, 1978, is automatically protected from the moment of its creation and is ordinarily given a term enduring for the author's life plus fifty years after the author's death. In the case of a joint work prepared by two or more authors who did not work for hire, the term lasts for 50 years after the last surviving author's death. For works made for hire, and for anonymous and psedonymous works, the duration of copyright will be 75 years from the publication or 100 years from the creation, whichever is shorter.
Works are registered through the Library of Congress Copyright Office in Washington, D.C. There is a $20 filing fee for each application. The author of a work, a copyright claimant, the owner of exclusive rights, or an authorized agent of the author can register a copyright.
(http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ1.html#wci)
At the end of October 1998, President Clinton signed into law H.R. 2281, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The law institutes two international copyright treaties negotiated through WIPO: the WIPO Copyright Treaty and WIPO Performances and Phonograph Treaty. These two treaties require the States who signed it to punish anyone who evaded technologies "designed to prevent unauthorized copying of copyrighted works, such as using 'black boxes' to descramble audiovisual signals, hacking into Web sitesthat charge for viewing, and bypassing technologies that prevent unauthorized copies of videotapes.
(http://www.washlaw.edu/cgi-bin/webglimpse/home/)
Title I of this law recognizes that technologies are evolving rapidly and that the statute may have unintended and undesirable effects. Section 1201 of the law states "no person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected by the Copyright Act." It also prohibits "manufacturing, importing, offering and providing technology primarily designed or intended to circumvent such access control technology."
(http://www.washlaw.edu/cgi-bin/webglimpse/home/)
Title II of the law adds a new section (512) to the Copyright Act that is designed to limit the liability of Internet service providers. This law states that "the service provided is not liable for automatically transmitting third-party materials in response to users' requests."
(http://www.washlaw.edu/cgi-bin/webglimpse/home/)
They are furthermore not liable for innocently storing information on their systems at users' direction or referring or linking users to infringing sites by providing directories, indexes, and hypertext links to such sites. Subsection 512(e) limits colleges and university service providers' liabilities for infringements by faculty and graduate students and limits service providers' liability for taking down or disabling access to material reasonably claimed to be infringing.
Title III of the law states that "lawful owners or lessees of computers may authorize thier parties to activate the machine so that the hardware can be services." It ensures that temporarily copying computer programs into RAM for purposes of repair does not infringe.
(http://www.washlaw.edu/cgi-bin/webglimpse/home/)