Protection of Copyrights--
How to Arm Your Cannon and Stop The Pirates
PART 1 - WHAT IS THIS ANIMAL?
© 1997 Green & Green All Rights Reserved
Many times we have a meeting with a person who claims that they provided an idea to
another, and then later a film, book, song, TV show or other work "copied" the
idea and used it without permission, and "they are making money on MY idea." It
is unfortunate that there is little or anything one can legally do about this common
complaint, and yet the person could have taken inexpensive precautions to protect the idea
and make of it a copyrightable work.
COPYRIGHTS are 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.' See 17
U.S.C. 101 et seq.
- Copyright is a "bundle of rights" These include: exclusive rights in
copyrighted works...
- To reproduce
- To prepare derivative works based upon the work
- To distribute the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
- To perform the copyrighted work publicly
.; - To display the copyrighted work publicly; and
- New: as of 11-95: in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted
work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission
- Copyright does not protect the idea itself; ideas are as "free as the wind."
Once given away, they are lost to the Public Domain, or the "dumper." It is too
easy to give away ideas. Telling them to studios as plots for plays, letting someone know
your thoughts on a book you will write, playing music for a publisher without any notion
of fixing it in a recording or any agreement not to use these things can lead to Public
Domain status.
- Copyright protects the expression of the ideas.
- This is the "idea-expression dichotomy" or the ''process-expression, method-expression, and useful-expression distinctions.''
- Since Copyright only protects only the expression--- until "fixation" there is
no copyright subsisting in the idea, however, on fixation in an tangible medium of
expression, there is a "common law copyright" that subsists in all such fixed
works.
- This notion of fixation is now very important in the software infringement context, and
is a new creative legal issue: Is software "fixed" for copyright purposes as it
resides in a computer's RAM? --> The courts so far say it is, especially if the
fixation is long enough for a user to use it. Is it a "fixed" copy if it travels
along node computers in an "Internet" or other network? Depends on the facts. Is
it "fixed" if it is a packet of e-mail or data and resides momentarily on a
computer?
- Since 1980 by law and prior to this by cases, 'all computer programs,' fixed in any form
by any method, performing any function for any purpose, are entitled to copyright
protection. See the Computer Copyright Act of 1980.
- The Act's purpose was to ''clearly [apply federal copyright law] to computer
programs....''
- Patents on the other hand, protect the process, functional design and concept behind an expressed idea. Thus a patent may afford different styles of protection for software that qualifies for the complexities of patent protection. Patents are also slow to register and copyrights take a relatively short time to secure.
- Copyrights are a "monopoly" that give the author, publisher or owner, for the life of the author plus 50 years, the exclusive rights mentioned above. This is the best, fastest and least expensive way to protect your ideas.