{"id":1327,"date":"2017-07-11T19:10:54","date_gmt":"2017-07-11T19:10:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dekuzu.com\/en\/?p=1327"},"modified":"2018-02-20T16:39:43","modified_gmt":"2018-02-20T16:39:43","slug":"draft-third-edition-of-usa-copyright-office-compendium-copyrightable-authorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dekuzu.com\/en\/2017\/07\/draft-third-edition-of-usa-copyright-office-compendium-copyrightable-authorship.html","title":{"rendered":"Draft third edition of USA copyright office compendium \u2013 copyrightable authorship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: times\\ new\\ roman, times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Copyright Act protects \u201coriginal works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.\u201d In determining whether a work is copyrightable, the Office analyzes questions such as:<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: times\\ new\\ roman, times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\"><!--more--><\/span><\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li><span style=\"font-family: times\\ new\\ roman, times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Is the work eligible for copyright protection in the United States?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: times\\ new\\ roman, times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Has the work been fixed in a tangible medium of expression?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: times\\ new\\ roman, times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Was the work created by a human author?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: times\\ new\\ roman, times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Does the work constitute copyrightable subject matter?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: times\\ new\\ roman, times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Is the work sufficiently original?<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: times\\ new\\ roman, times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">&#8211; Was the work independently created?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: times\\ new\\ roman, times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">&#8211; Does the work possess at least some minimal degree of creativity?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: times\\ new\\ roman, times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">If the answer to all of these questions is \u201cyes,\u201d the work is copyrightable and the claim may be registered, as long as there are no other issues in the registration materials that raise questions concerning the claim and as long as the other legal and formal requirements have been met. A work of authorship may be deemed copyrightable, provided that it has been \u201cfixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which it can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or indirectly with the aid of a machine or device.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: times\\ new\\ roman, times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Specifically, the work must be fixed in a copy or phonorecord \u201cby or under the authority of the author\u201d and the work must be \u201csufficiently permanent or stable to permit it to be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated for a period of more than transitory duration.\u201d The terms \u201ccopy\u201d and \u201cphonorecord\u201d are very broad. They cover \u201call of the material objects in which copyrightable works are capable of being fixed\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li><span style=\"font-family: times\\ new\\ roman, times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Copies are \u201cmaterial objects, other than phonorecords, in which a work is fixed by any method now known or later developed, and from which the work can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device,\u201d including the material object \u201cin which the work is first fixed.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: times\\ new\\ roman, times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Phonorecords are \u201cmaterial objects in which sounds, other than those accompanying a motion picture or other audiovisual work, are fixed by any method now known or later developed, and from which the sounds can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device,\u201d including \u201cthe material object in which the sounds are first fixed.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: times\\ new\\ roman, times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Most works are fixed by their very nature, such as an article printed on paper, a song recorded in a digital audio file, a sculpture rendered in bronze, a screenplay saved in a data file, or an audiovisual work captured on film. Nevertheless, some works of authorship may not satisfy the fixation requirement, such as an improvisational speech, sketch, dance, or other performance that is not recorded in a tangible medium of expression. Other works may be temporarily embodied in a tangible form, but may not be sufficiently permanent or stable to warrant copyright protection, such as \u201cpurely evanescent or transient reproductions such as those projected briefly on a screen, shown electronically on a television,\u2026 or captured momentarily in the memory of a computer.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: times\\ new\\ roman, times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The Office may communicate with the applicant or may refuse registration if the work or the medium of expression only exists for a transitory period of time, if the work or the medium is constantly changing, or if the medium does not allow the specific elements of the work to be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated in a consistent and uniform manner. The U.S. Copyright Office will register an original work of authorship, provided that the work was created by a human being. Because copyright law is limited to \u201coriginal intellectual conceptions of the author,\u201d the Office will refuse to register a claim if it determines that a human being did not create the work.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: times\\ new\\ roman, times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Originality is \u201cthe bedrock principle of copyright\u201d and \u201cthe very premise of copyright law.\u201d \u201cTo qualify for copyright protection, a work must be original to the author,\u201d which means that the work must be \u201cindependently created by the author\u201d and it must possess \u201cat least some minimal degree of creativity.\u201d The copyright law protects \u201cthose components of a work that are original to the author,\u201d but \u201coriginality\u201d does not require \u201cnovelty.\u201d A work may satisfy the independent creation requirement \u201ceven though it closely resembles other works so long as the similarity is fortuitous, not the result of copying.\u201d For example, if two authors created works that are similar or even identical, each work could be registered provided that the authors did not copy expression from each other.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: times\\ new\\ roman, times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">An author\u2019s expression does not need to \u201cbe presented in an innovative or surprising way,\u201d but it \u201ccannot be so mechanical or routine as to require no creativity whatsoever.\u201d A work that it is \u201centirely typical,\u201d \u201cgarden-variety,\u201d or \u201cdevoid of even the slightest traces of creativity\u201d does not satisfy the originality requirement. A work \u201cdoes not possess the minimal creative spark required by the Copyright Act\u201d if the author\u2019s expression is \u201cobvious\u201d or \u201cpractically inevitable.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: times\\ new\\ roman, times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">As a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dekuzu.com\/en\/docs\/Draft_third_edition_of_USA_copyright_office_compendium.pdf\">general rule<\/a>, the registration specialist will not search the U.S. Copyright Office\u2019s records to determine if the work has been registered before, unless there is conflicting information in the registration materials or other sources of information that are known by the Office or the general public. The specialist will not compare the deposit copy(ies) with other works that have been previously registered with the Office. Likewise, the specialist generally will not compare the deposit copy(ies) with other works to determine whether the applicant is attempting to register a work that is substantially similar to another work of authorship, unless the applicant appears to be asserting a claim in a work that is unusually similar to another work of authorship that is known to the specialist.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: times\\ new\\ roman, times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">When examining a work for original authorship, the U.S. Copyright Office will not consider the author\u2019s inspiration for the work, creative intent, or intended meaning. The fact that creative thought may take place in the mind of the person who created a work (or a person viewing or listening to the work) has no bearing on the issue of originality unless the work objectively demonstrates original authorship. Mental processes do not themselves provide an objective basis for evaluating creativity. The U.S. Copyright Office will not consider the author\u2019s creative skill and experience when evaluating a work for copyrightable authorship, because the author\u2019s personal or professional history is irrelevant to the determination of copyrightability.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: times\\ new\\ roman, times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">When examining a work for original authorship, the U.S. Copyright Office will focus on the appearance or sound of the work that the author created but will not consider the amount of time, effort, or expense required to create the work. As a general rule, the Office will not consider possible design alternatives that the author may have considered when he or she created the work. Likewise, the Office will not consider potential variations in the use of the work, such as the fact that a work could be presented in a different color, in a different size, or with a different orientation. The U.S. Copyright Office will not consider the marketability or commercial success of the work, because these issues are irrelevant to the originality analysis.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Copyright Act protects \u201coriginal works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dekuzu.com\/en\/2017\/07\/draft-third-edition-of-usa-copyright-office-compendium-copyrightable-authorship.html\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Draft third edition of USA copyright office compendium \u2013 copyrightable authorship<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,18,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-copyright","category-intellectual-property","category-law","category-uncategorised","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dekuzu.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dekuzu.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dekuzu.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dekuzu.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dekuzu.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dekuzu.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1327\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dekuzu.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dekuzu.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dekuzu.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}