Basics: What is Copyright Law?
What is Copyright Protected?
When Works Pass into the Public Domain
Copyright Court Decisions (summary)
is Copyright Protected?
- 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
- Computer software
- Works that have not been fixed in a tangible form of
expression by being written, recorded or captured electronically.
- Titles, names, short phrases and slogans; familiar symbols
or designs; mere variations of typographic ornamentation,
lettering or coloring; mere listings of ingredients or
- Ideas, facts, data, procedures, methods, systems, processes,
concepts, principles, discoveries or devices, as distinguished
from a description, explanation or illustration.
- Works consisting entirely of information that are natural
or self-evident facts, containing no original authorship,
such as the white pages of telephone books, standard calendars,
height and weight charts and tape measures and rulers.
- Works created by the U.S. Government.
- Works for which copyright has expired; works in the