Just What is a Copyright?

Protection! United States Law (title 17,U.S Code). A form of protection to authors of "original works of authorship". These works include dramatic, artistic, literary, musical and certain other intellectual works. Section 106 of the 1976 Copyright act, both published and unpublished works qualify for this protection which gives the owner(s) exclusive rights to authorize others to:

Reproduce these works in phonorecords or copies.

Prepare a derivative work based on the work.

Distribute phonorecords or copies of the work by sales or other transfer of ownership, or by lease, lending or rental to the public.

Publicly perform the work, in the case of literary, musical, choreographic works, motion pictures, dramatic, pantomimes and other audiovisual works.

Publictly display the copyrighted work, in the case of literary, musical, choreographic works, motion pictures, dramatic, pantomimes, sculptural works and pictorial graphic including individual images of a motion picture or audiovisual work.

Sound recordings, perform the work publicly by the means of a digital audio transmission.

Of the 1976 Copyright Act, certain authors of visual arts works have the rights of attribution and integrity described in section 106A If you would like further information you may request Circular 40 "Copyright Registration for works of Visual Arts".

For anyone to violate any of the rights provided by the copyright law to the copyright owner is illegal.However, these rights are not unlimited in scope of the 1976 Copyright Act Sections 107 through 121. "Fair use" doctrine is one majar limitation which is given a statutory basis in section 107 of the 1976 Copyright Act. In other instances, the limitation takes the form of a "Compulsory license" which certain limited uses of copyrighted works are permitted upon payment of royalties that are specified and in compliance with statutory conditions. If you would like further information write to the Copyright Office or consult the copyright law.

This article is written by Larry G. Lupole, Independent musician as well as the former CEO of Ice Records, Inc., where he was heavily involved with the music industry and did music consultations and ran two publishing companies, Larry Gene Music and J. Paul Music. http://www.larrylupole.com