WHAT IS A COPYRIGHT?
Copyright is a form of protection provided to the authors of “original works of authorship” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, sculptural, and certain other intellectual works, both published and unpublished. In order to be protected, the work must be in a fixed, tangible form. The 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to reproduce the copyrighted work, to prepare derivative works, to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work, to perform the copyrighted work publicly, or to display the copyrighted work publicly.
The copyright protects the form of expression rather than the idea or subject matter of the writing. Protection begins on the date the idea is fixed in a tangible medium of expression. Copyrights are registered by the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress.