The Purloined Idea. You’re sitting down with a close friend for coffee. You often share with him ideas for your novels, and in this case you have a particularly ingenious one. It only popped into your head on the drive to the coffee shop, but already plot details are flying into focus. You outline your vision, growing more and more excited in its telling as you watch your friend’s eyes grow wide with interest. You make a mental note to work on this book as soon as you finish your current writing project.
But before you get to it, you find out your friend has turned your idea into a bestselling novel. You’re shocked. You’re upset. He clearly plagiarized your idea, right down to the stunning plot twist.
But wasn’t your idea protected by US copyright law? Don’t you have a strong legal foundation to sue for copyright infringement and collect some of the millions that your “former friend” has made on the novel?
Sorry, but your spontaneously developed idea is not protected by copyright. Maybe you can skip the movie version when it comes out and save yourself ten bucks.
The Purloined Lyrics. Another friend, this one a songwriter, served as a sounding board for lyrics that you sent her by email. And her opinion was positive. You didn’t know just how positive until the day you heard a popular song on the radio that had your lyrics! She had added a melody and turned your words into a hit that made millions.
Other than the fact that you are now wondering about your choice of friends, aren’t you entitled to some of the profits from that song? Weren’t your lyrics protected by copyright?
Thankfully, yes. Your words had been in a fixed, tangible form when you sent that email to her.
The Purchased Painting. Finally you do write that bestseller. It is self-published, but caught the eye of the public and snowballed onto The New York Times Bestseller List. It is your idea, your name (well, a pseudonym,” Rock Coldwater”), and your profits. As a cover, you used a digital copy of a beautiful painting that you spotted at an art gallery. It cost you a lot to purchase—$1,000—but it made for a catchy cover.
But now the artist is suing you for using her art. But you bought it? How can she claim a copyright when you bought the freaking painting? Don’t you own the copyright?
Sadly for you (good for artists), unless you made special arrangements to buy the copyright, you only bought the painting. The copyright remains with the artist.
Fixed, Tangible Form. Turns out, the basics of US copyright law are not all that hard to understand. If you are the creator of an original work, you gain the exclusive, legal protection of copyright the moment your creation is fixed (not transitory) in some tangible form.
You don’t have to formally publish your original: it could be fixed in the form of a blog on a website, an email message stored in a computer, a dance choreography that is videotaped. You don’t need to add a copyright symbol (although you would’ve had to prior to March 1, 1989). You don’t need to register the copyright with the US: it is valid just by the fact it’s in fixed form. And once it’s in fixed form, the copyright is valid for the life of the creator plus 70 years.
But it needs to be in fixed form. A dance choreography, as unique as your make it, is not afforded copyright protection unless it is recorded in some way: a video recording, dance steps listed on paper, etc. And a professor’s extemporaneous lecture is not protected even if broadcast, if the broadcast is not recorded.
Ideas and concepts. However, this legal protection does not extend to ideas and concepts. More specifically, according to the Copyright Act, Section 102:
In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.
Buying an original piece of art. Of importance, and perhaps not so well known, is the fact that if you were to buy an original piece of art, you are buying the physical object, not the copyright. As a purchaser, you would not have the right to reproduce the painting, or music, or pottery, and so forth.
You could get a transfer agreement in writing and by such means transfer the copyright ownership in whole or part. But the artist retains the copyright unless there is such a transfer agreement, or the copyright has expired, or the work was done as a work for hire. But work for hire has a very specific meaning—which we will address in Part II next month.
Part II will address:
- Works for hire
- Registering
a copyright.
- Why register your copyright if you already own the copyright when your creation is in fixed form? Turns out there are important reasons.
- Fair use
- Public domain
- Multiple ownership of copyright