The copyright law of the United States is intended to encourage the creation of art and culture by rewarding authors and artists with a set of exclusive rights. Copyright law gives authors and artists the exclusive right to create and sell copies of their work, the right to create derivative works, and the right to publicly perform or display their work. This exclusive right is subject to the time limit, and generally ends 70 years after the author's death. In the United States, any music composed before January 1, 1923, is generally considered a public domain. The law is codified in the 17th title of the United States Code.
United States copyright law is governed by the Copyright Act of 1976. The United States Constitution explicitly gives Congress the power to enact copyright laws under Article 1, Section 8, Section 8, known as the Copyright Clause. Under the Copyright Clause, the Congress has the power, "To promote the Advancement of Science and Arts useful, by securing for a Limited Time to Authors and Inventors of Exclusive Rights to Their Own Writings and Discovery."
The United States Copyright Office deals with copyright registration, copyright transfer records, and other administrative aspects of copyright law.
Video Copyright law of the United States
Histori
US copyright law traces its lineage back to the British Statement of Anne, which affects the first US federal copyright law, the Copyright Act of 1790. The Copyright Act has been updated several times, including, in particular, the Copyright Act of 1976 and Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 (also called "Mickey Mouse Protection Act", as it prevents copyright from expiring on the first commercial success of cartoon character Mickey Mouse).
Maps Copyright law of the United States
Destination copyright
The purpose of copyright law, as set forth in the Constitution US Constitution Clause, is "to promote the Advancement of Science and Arts useful, by securing for a Limited Time to Authors and Inventors of Exclusive Rights to Their Own Writings and Discovery." This includes giving incentives to the creation of art, literature, architecture, music, and the work of other authors. Like many legal doctrines, the effectiveness of copyright laws in achieving the stated objectives is a matter of debate.
Working is subject to copyright law
The United States copyright law protects the "original work of authorship," persists in a real medium including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and other intellectual works. This protection is available for both published and unpublished works. Copyright law covers the following types of work:
- Literature
- Music
- Dramatic
- Pantomime and choreographic works
- Works of drawings, graphics, and sculptures
- Audio-visual works
- Voice recording
- Derivative works
- Compile
- Architectural works
ide-expression dichotomy
Copyright law protects the "expression" of an idea, but copyright does not protect the "idea" itself. This difference is called the idea-expression dichotomy. The difference between "idea" and "expression" is very important for copyright law. From the Copyright Act of 1976 (17 U.S.C.Ã,§Ã,§):
In the absence of copyright protection for the original work of authorship extends to ideas, procedures, processes, systems, methods of operation, concepts, principles or inventions, regardless of the form described, described, illustrated, or manifested in such work.
For example, a paper describing political theory is copyright. This paper is the expression of the author's idea of ​​political theory. But the theory itself is just an idea, and has no copyright. Other authors are free to describe the same theory with their own words without infringing on the copyrights of the original author.
Although fundamental, the idea-expression dichotomy is often difficult to practice. Reasonable people can disagree about where unprotected "ideas" end and a protected "expression" begins. As the Judge Resolved Hands said, "Obviously, no principle can be expressed when an impersonator has gone beyond copying the 'idea', and borrowing his expression." Therefore, the decision must be ad hoc. "
Compile facts and sweat from doctrine eyebrow
Only facts that do not have copyright. However, the fact compilation is treated differently, and may be copyrighted material. Copyright Act, Ã,§Ã, 103, allows copyright protection to "compile", as long as there are "creative" or "original" actions involved in developing compilations, such as in elections (deciding which facts are included or not included), and settings (how facts are displayed and in what order). The copyright protection in the compilation is limited to selection and fact-setting , not on the fact itself.
The Supreme Court's Decision on Feist Publications, Inc., v. Rural Telephone Service Co. clarify the copyright requirements in the compilation. The Feist case rejects copyright protection for the "white pages" phone book (compilation of phone numbers, listed alphabetically). In making this decision, the Supreme Court rejected the doctrine of "altar sweat." That is, copyright protection requires creativity, and no hard work ("brow sweat") can alter a non-creative list (such as a list of alphabet phone numbers) into a copyright-protected subject. Collections of mechanical and non-selective facts (eg, alphabet phone numbers) can not be protected by copyright.
Useful articles
Copyright protects artistic expression. Copyright does not protect useful articles, or objects with some useful functions. The Copyright Law states:
"Useful articles" are articles that have intrinsic utilitarian functions that are not merely to describe the appearance of articles or to convey information. An article that is usually part of a useful article is considered a "useful article".
"the useful article design, as defined in this section, shall be regarded as a work of drawing, graphics, or sculpture only if, and only to the extent that, the design incorporates features of images, graphs or sculptures that can be independently identified, exist independently, the utilitarian aspects of the article. "
However, many industrial designers create works that are artistic and functional. Under these circumstances, the Copyright Act only protects the artistic expression of such a work, and only to the extent that artistic expression can be separated from its utilitarian function.
In 2017, the US Supreme Court granted certiorari in the case of Star Athletica, LLC v. Varsity Brands, Inc. to specify when "feature images, graphics, or sculptures" are incorporated into eligible useful articles. for copyright protection, holding that the feature qualifies for copyright protection "only if feature (1) may be considered a separate two or three dimensional artwork from a useful article and (2) will qualify as a pictorial image that may protected, graphic, or sculptural work - either alone or remain in some other real-life expression medium - if it was imagined separately from the useful article in which it was inserted. " Star Athletica started as a lawsuit by Varsity Brands against Star Athletica for infringing copyright of five cheerleading design uniforms. Implementing new tests for cheerleader uniform design, the court said:
First, one can identify the decor as a feature that has image quality, graphics, or sculpture. Secondly, if the arrangement of colors, shapes, lines, and chevron on the uniform surfaces of the cheerleading are separated from uniform and applied in another medium - for example, on the canvas of painters - they will qualify as "two dimensional artworks. And by imaginatively removing the surface decoration of the uniform and applying it in other media will not replicate the uniform itself. Indeed, respondents have applied the design in this case to other expression media - different types of clothing - without replicating uniforms. Therefore the decoration is separated from the uniform and qualifies for copyright protection.
This results in a relatively low threshold for feature images, graphics, or sculptures on useful articles to qualify for copyright protection, commented by one commentator: the Star Athletica decision has really ensured that all but the most subtle of graphic designs will be able to obtain copyright protection... once we determine that the design 'hav [e]... graphics... quality... [and can] be applied... on canvas painter , 'tests for copyright are met. "
Working by the federal government
Jobs made by the federal government have no copyright. 17 US 105. This copyright restriction applies to publications produced by the Government of the United States, and its agents or employees within their scope of work. The specific language is as follows:
Copyright protection under this heading is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not prohibited from accepting and holding any copyright transferred to it by assignment, testament or otherwise.
"The work of the United States Government" is defined in 17 U.S.C.Ã, Ã, 101 as work prepared by officers or employees of the United States Government as part of the official duty of that person. Note that government contractors are generally not considered employees, and their work may be subject to copyright. Likewise, the US government may purchase and retain copyrights on works created by third parties.
Governments may restrict access to works produced through other mechanisms. For example, the secret or secret material is not protected by copyright, but is limited by other applicable laws. However, even in the case of non-confidential material there is a special prohibition against automatic access to employment expressed in 17 U.S.C.Ã, Ã,§ 105 for commercial purposes.
Federal and state laws are not protected by copyright
The federal statute is in the public domain and no copyright applies to it. The same applies to court decisions. It is not difficult to see the motivation behind this:
The citizen is the author of the law, and therefore its owner, regardless of who actually makes the provisions, since the law obtains its authority from public approval, is expressed through the process of democracy.
As a matter of long-standing public policy, the US Copyright Office will not register state decrees issued by state, local or territory governments, including legislative ratification, court decisions, administrative rulings, general order or similar official types. material law. Likewise, the Office shall not register any government decree issued by a foreign government or any translation prepared by a government official acting in his official duties.
However, some states, such as Oregon and Georgia, have claimed that the annotated edition of their law is copyright. In July 2015, Georgia sued open information activist Carl Malamud, founder of Public.Resource.Org, in a Federal court in Atlanta for copyright infringement. Malamud has posted the Georgia Annotated Official Code on his website. In complaints and in press releases, the State of Georgia claims that this is a "hijacking" and "terrorism."
Exclusive rights
There are six basic rights protected by copyright. The copyright owner has the exclusive right to authorize and authorize others to do the following:
- To reproduce a job in a copy or phonorecords;
- To prepare derivative works by job;
- To distribute copies or fonorecords of works to the public by sale or transfer of other ownership, or by lease, lease or lending;
- To perform work publicly , in the case of literary works, music, drama, and choreography, pantomime, and film and other audiovisual works;
- To publicly display a work, in terms of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographical work, pantomime, and drawings, graphics or sculptures, including individual images of films or other audiovisual works.
- To digitally send voice recording via digital audio transmission.
Any violation of any proprietary rights from copyright holders is a violation of copyright, except for fair use (or similar affirmative assertions).
Authorship, Ownership, and Work to Transfer
The original owner of a copyright to a work is the author, unless it is a "work made for rent".
- Working for employment . If a work is made "for hire" in the sense of the Copyright Act, then the employer or the commission , is considered the author and will own the copyright even if it is the author which are actually. These circumstances in which work can be found to be a leased job are:
- Jobs prepared by an employee within the scope of their work. In the Community for Non-Creative Violence v. Reid, 490 U.S. 730 (1989), the Supreme Court states that the term "employee" in this context should be interpreted in accordance with the common law agency principles. If the person doing the work is an "employee" in the general sense of the law, and the work is done within the scope of their work (whether the job is the kind they employ to prepare, whether the preparation mainly takes place in time and workplace specifications, activated, at least in part, in order to serve the employer), then the work is a job to rent and the employer is the original owner of the copyright.
- Special command or assigned work. Jobs made by independent contractors (not employees) may be considered to be hired only if two conditions are met. First, work should fall into one of these categories: contributions to collective work, parts of film or other audiovisual works, translations, supplementary works, compilations, instructional texts, tests, test materials, or atlases. Second, the parties must expressly agree in writing, sign the instrument that the work will be considered as work made for hire.
If the job is not a job to rent, then the author will be the original copyright owner. The author is generally the person who understands the copyright-protected expressions and "fixes them" in "a real medium of expression". Special rules apply when multiple authors are involved:
- Joint authorship: U.S. copyright acknowledges joint authorship in Section 101. Co-authors are co-owners of a copyright in the work. Collective work is "a work prepared by two or more authors with the intention that their contributions are combined into inseparable or independent parts of the whole entity."
- Collective work : Collective work is a collection of independent authors and can be trusted separately, such as newspapers, magazines, or encyclopedias. In the absence of a strict copyright appointment, the authors of each work individually in the collection own the copyright to the work. The compiler, or author of the collection, owns the copyright in the phrase that he or she contributes, which is primarily a separate selection and arrangement of contributions, but may include things such as introductory words, advertisements, etc., made by the collective authors.
Transfer and license
There are three types of transfers for copyrighted work.
- Assignment
- Exclusive license
- Non-exclusive license
The first two, exclusive assignments and licenses, require that transfers be made in writing. Non-exclusive licenses do not need to be in writing and may be implied by circumstances. Transfer of copyright always involves one or more of the copyright exclusive rights . For example, a license may grant the right to do the work, but not to reproduce it or to prepare derivative works (adaptation rights).
License provisions are governed by applicable contract law, but there is an important academic debate about the extent to which the Copyright Act prevents the legal principles of state contracts.
An author, after transferring a copyright, may terminate the transfer under certain circumstances. The right to terminate this transfer is absolute and can not be ignored.
Registration procedure
Copyright is automatically granted to authors of the original work (which if it does not meet the basic copyright requirements, discussed above). Registration is not required. However, registration strengthens the rights of copyright holders in various ways. Registration is required before the lawsuit can be filed, and registration creates the possibility for enhanced "legal" damage.
Copyright can be registered online at the US Copyright Office website. The Copyright Office reviews the application for a clear error or lack of copyrighted material, and then issues a registration certificate. The Copyright Office does not compare the author's new work with existing work collections or examine violations.
Deposit requirements
The United States Copyright Office requires a copy of the storage of work for which copyright registration is requested. Deposits can be made through the ECO Copyright Office System. This deposit requirement serves two purposes. First, if a copyright infringement lawsuit appears, the owner may prove that the infringing material is exactly the same material as the owner who has obtained the registration. Secondly, this requirement helps the Library of Congress build a collection of his works.
Failure to meet the deposit requirements, as amended by the Copyright Office rules, may be punished well, but does not result in the confiscation of copyrights.
Copyright notice
The use of a copyright notice is optional. The Berne Convention, which amended the US copyright law in 1989, created automatic copyright. However, the lack of a copyright notice using these signs may have consequences in terms of reducing the damage in the infringement lawsuit - using notices of this form may reduce the likelihood of an "innocent innocence" defense becoming a success.
Copyright duration
Copyright protection generally lasts for 70 years after the author's death. If the job is a "work for hire", then copyright lasts for 120 years after its creation or 95 years after publication, whichever is shorter. For works created before 1978, the rules of copyright duration are complicated. However, works created before 1923 have made their way into the public domain.
Jobs created before 1978
For works published or enrolled prior to 1978, the maximum copyright duration is 95 years from the date of publication, if the copyright is updated during the 28th year after publication. The copyright update has been automated since the Copyright Act of 1992.
For works created before 1978, but not published or registered before 1978, the duration of copyright Ã, §302 standard also applies. Prior to 1978, works must be published or registered for copyright protection. On the effective date of the Copyright Act of 1976 (which was January 1, 1978) this requirement was removed and this unpublished and unregistered work received protection. However, Congress is intended to provide incentives for these authors to publish unpublished works. To provide such incentives, these works, if issued before 2003, will not have their protection expired before 2048.
All copyrights published in the United States prior to 1923 are in the public domain; Works that were made before 1978 but not published until now can be protected until 2047. For works that received their copyrights before 1978, an update must be filed within the 28th year of that year with the Copyright Office for an extended term of protection. Renewal requirements have been omitted by the Copyright Act of 1992, but works that have entered the public domain by not being updated do not get copyright protection. Therefore, works published before 1964 that are not updated are in the public domain.
Prior to 1972, sound recordings were not subject to federal copyright, but copying was still regulated under various state suits and laws, some of which had no duration limits. The Voice Recording Amendment of 1971 extended federal copyright to a permanent record on or after February 15, 1972, and stated that the recording stays before that date will remain subject to the state or copyright of common law. The subsequent amendment has extended this last term until 2067. As a result, older sound recordings are not subject to expiring rules applicable to contemporary visual works. While this may enter the public domain as a result of government authorship or official grants by the owner, the practical effect is to make public domain audio virtually non-existent.
In May 2016, Judge Percy Anderson ruled in a lawsuit between ABS Entertainment and CBS Radio that the "remaster" version of the pre-1972 recording could receive federal copyright as a different work because of the amount of creative effort stated in the process.
Restrictions, exceptions and copyright defenses
United States copyright law covers many defenses, exceptions, and limitations. Some of the most important include:
- Copyright applies only to certain subject-matter subjects , codified in 17 USC Ã,§Ã, 102. Jobs that are not "original authorship works which remain in the medium of real expressions "is not subject to copyright. 17 U.S.C.Ã,§Ã, (b) codified that copyright protection does not include ideas, procedures, processes, systems, etc. Facts may not be copyrighted. "Useful articles" may not be copyrighted. Useful articles include font design ( Eltra Corp v. Ringer ), fashion design, blank form, title, name, short phrase, slogan, material and content list, domain name and band name.
- The first sales doctrine , 17 USCÃ,§Ã, 109, limits the rights of copyright holders to control distribution further and displays a copy of their work after first sale by the copyright owner. The owner of a particular copy is entitled to "sell or remove ownership of the copy" and "publicly display a copy... to the audience present at the place where the copy is located."
- The defense of "good faith" (Section 504 (c) (2)) reduces the legal harm to which an offender is an educational institution, library, archive or general broadcaster and reasonably believes that infringing use is "fair use."
- The Copyright Act includes specific exceptions for certain types of jobs and entities, such as libraries (Ã,§Ã, 108), public announcer (Ã, §Ã, 110 and Ã, § 118), braille (Ã,§Ã, 121), backup copies of software (Ã,§Ã, 117) , "cover license" allows voice recording of cover (Ã,§ 115), and jukebox compulsory license (Ã,§ 116).
- Conditions for Blind and Disabled . The Copyright Act, in 17 USC 121 and 17 USC 110 (8), includes the exclusion of special laws for the reproduction of material for blind persons or others. Section 121 ("Chafee Amendment") permits the reproduction of copyrighted work in Braille, audio, electronic, Web-Braille, or any other necessary format. For example, the National Library Service for the Blind and Physical Disability (NLS) manages the program under Section 121, and HathiTrust Digital Library also relies on Section 121 in providing access to disabled users.
- Online Service Provider "Safe Harbor." Section 512 ("OCILLA", graduated as part of the DMCA in 1998) provides a contingent port "safe" for online service providers of secondary liability for infringing user copies.
- Art-made animals are not subject to copyright, such as "photos taken by monkeys".
Fair use
Fair use is the use of copyrighted material in such limited quantities that it is not a violation. It was codified on 17 U.S.C.Ã,§ 107, and stated that "fair use of a copyrighted work... is not a copyright infringement." This section contains four factors that must be assessed to determine whether a particular use is fair. There are no bright line rules about fair use and each determination is made on a case by case basis individually.
- Purpose and character of use, including whether its use is commercial or for nonprofit education purposes : Nonprofit educational and non-commercial uses are more likely to be used fairly. This no means that all nonprofit education and noncommercial use are fair use or any unfair commercial use. Instead, the court will balance the purpose and character of its use against other factors below. In addition, the use of " transformative " is more likely to be fair. The use of transformative is that which adds something new, with a further purpose or different character, and does not replace the original use of the work.
- The nature of copyrighted works : Using more creative or imaginative works (like novels, movies, or songs) less tends to support fair use rather than using factual work (such as technical articles or news). In addition, the use of unpublished works tends to be unfair.
- Number and substantial portion used in connection with the copyrighted work as a whole : The court looks at both the quantity and quality of the copyrighted materials used. The use of most copyrighted works tends to be unfair. However, the courts sometimes find the use of the whole job for fair use, and in other contexts, using even a small number of copyrighted works is determined to be unfair because selection is an important part - or "heart" work.
- Effect of use on potential markets for or value of copyrighted work
In addition to these four factors, the law also allows the court to consider other factors that may be relevant to fair use analysis. The court assesses fair use claims on a case-by-case basis, and the outcome of each case depends on the specific facts of the case. There is no formula to ensure that the percentage or number of predetermined jobs - or the number of words, lines, pages, certain copies - can be used without permission.
The justification of the fair use doctrine changes mainly on whether, and to what extent, the opposed use is transformative . "The use should be productive and must use the material quoted in a different way or for a different purpose from the original.A quote from copyrighted material that only repacked or republished the original is not possible to pass the test.... If, on the other hand , secondary use adds value to the original - if the material quoted is used as a raw material, changed in the creation of new information, new aesthetics, new insights and insights - this is the kind of activity that fair use doctrine intends to protect to enrich society.
The Copyright Office provides a list of searchable fair use lawsuits.
Parody
Although parody may be considered a derivative work, and thus in the exclusive right of the copyright owner, it may qualify as "fair use." Parody is not automatically used fairly. The Supreme Court of the United States declared that the (transformative) parody "was the use of some elements of the compositions of previous writers to create new ones which, at least in part, comment on the work of the author." The function of the comment provides some justification for the use of older works; on the contrary, an allusion (exaggerated) (which is not targeted to the work borrowed from) does not require the use of the original to explain its meaning. (See Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. ).
Violation
Copyright infringement occurs when a person violates one of the exclusive rights listed in 17 USC 106. Typically, this involves someone who creates or distributes "copies" of protected works that are "very similar" to the original version.
Violations require copying. If two people happen to write the exact same story, without the knowledge of others, there is no violation.
Copyright infringement violations
The copyright owner may file a copyright infringement suit in federal court. The Federal Court has the jurisdiction of subjects subject to copyright infringement cases. This means that violation cases can not be filed in court of the state . Note that the Copyright Office handles copyright registration, but does not adjudicate copyright infringement disputes.
Legal ownership of copyright
In order to bring a claim of copyright infringement, the copyright holder must establish a legitimate copyright ownership and copy the original ingredient elements. The copyright owner must also specify both (a) actual copy and (b) improper job allocation. The copyright owner, as the plaintiff, bears the burden of building all three elements of the prima facie case for infringement.
A plaintiff establishes ownership by authorship (by the plaintiff himself or by a person who grants the rights of the plaintiff) from (1) original original original work which (2) remains in real media (eg books, music recordings , etc.).
Registration is not required to create copyright protection, but registration is required before bringing a lawsuit. Registration is also useful because it creates a presumption of valid copyright , enabling plaintiffs to accumulate enhanced "legal damages", and to be eligible for award fees attorneys.
A plaintiff assigns "actual copy" with direct or indirect evidence. Direct evidence is fulfilled either by the defendant's acknowledgment to copy or witness testimony that observes the defendant in acting. More generally, the plaintiff relies on indirect or indirect evidence. The court will conclude copying by displaying " striking similarities " between the copyrighted work and the alleged copy, along with the shows from both access and use of that access. A plaintiff may establish "access" with evidence of distribution over a large geographical area, or with eyewitness testimony that the defendant has a copy of the work protected. Access alone is not enough to establish a violation. The plaintiff must show the similarity between the two works, and the degree of similarity will affect the possibility that illegal copying actually takes place in the eyes of the court. Even then, the plaintiff must point out that the copying is an improper allocation. Indeed, the United States Supreme Court has stated that not all copying is a violation and shows that misuse is necessary.
Abuse
Copyrighted work may contain elements that can not be copyrighted, such as facts, ideas, themes, or content in the public domain. A plaintiff suspecting abuse must first indicate that what the defendant did from a copyrighted work may be protected. Second, the plaintiff must point out that the intended audience will recognize substantial similarities between the two works. The intended audience may be the general public, or a specialized field. The degree of equality required for a court to find fraud is not easily defined. Indeed, "the exam for copyright infringement is an unclear requirement."
Two methods are used to determine whether unauthorized plunder has taken place: "subtractive method" and "method totality".
The subtractive method , also known as "abstraction/subtraction approach" seeks to analyze what parts of copyrighted works can be protected and which are not. The unprotected elements are minus and the fact finder then determines whether the substantial similarity exists in the remaining protected expression. For example, if the copyright holder for the West Side Story alleged infringement, elements of music borrowed from Romeo and Juliet will be deducted before comparing it with the allegedly infringing work due to Romeo and Juliet is in the public domain.
The totality method, also known as the "total and sense concept" approach takes the overall job with all elements including when determining whether there is substantial similarity. It was first formulated in Roth Greeting Cards v. United Card Co. (1970). The individual elements of the allegedly infringed work itself are substantially different from the relevant parts of the copyrighted work, but are nonetheless considered to be a clear misuse of copyright material.
Modern courts sometimes use both methods in their analysis of abuse. In another example, one method may find abuse while others do not, making misuse of the topic of debate in litigation violations.
Civil recovery
Successful copyright infringement claimants may seek "indemnification" and monetary damages.
Order : The Copyright Act Ã,§ 502 confirms the court to provide both preliminary and permanent orders for copyright infringement. There are also provisions for confiscating allegedly infringing copies and other materials used for breach, and for their destruction.
Damages and/or Advantages : The Copyright Act Ã,§ 504 gives the copyright owner the option to recover: (1) the actual damages and additional benefits of the defendant; or (2) damages to the law.
Fair help
A temporary and permanent order is available to prevent or withhold copyright infringement. An "order" is a court order that directs a defendant to stop doing something (eg, stop selling infringing copy). One of the only forms of assistance available in copyright cases is the seizure command . At any time during the trial, the court may order the detention of any and all copies of infringed products. The foreclosure sequence may include the material used to produce the copy, such as the master tape, negative film, platen, etc. The items seized during the proceedings may, if the plaintiff wins, are ordered to be destroyed as part of the final decree.
Monetary damages
The copyright holder can also look for monetary damages. Orders and damage are not mutually exclusive. A person can have orders and no damage, or damage and no command, or both command and damage. There are two types of damage: actual damage and profit, or legal compensation.
The copyright owner may recover the benefits to be gained without any breach (actual damage) and any gain that may have been violated by the offender due to the violation but that has not been taken into account in calculating the actual damage. To recover the actual damage, the plaintiff must prove to the court that, in the absence of infringement, the plaintiff will be able to make additional sales, or may be able to charge a higher price, and this will result in a profit given the owner's cost structure. In some cases, the benefits gained by an infringer who exploits copyrighted material may exceed those obtained by or potentially available to the owner. In such circumstances, the copyright owner may recover the offender's profits if he can show the relationship between the offending advantage and use.
Legal damages are available as an alternative to actual damage and profit. If copyright is registered either (a) within three months of publication or (b) prior to the breach, the claimant is entitled to seek legal remedies. Legal damages may be granted by the court in the range of $ 750 to $ 30,000, but this can be reduced if the violation is considered unintentional, or increases significantly if the violation is intentional.
Legal damages are sometimes preferred to the plaintiff if the actual damage and gain are too small, or too difficult to prove, or both. However, situations where legal damages are not available. 17 U.S.C.Ã,§§ 412 provides:
- Legal damages are not available if works are not published and violations commence before the effective date of registration.
- Legal damages are not available if the work is published but the violation commences after the first publication and before the effective date of registration, unless registration is made within three months after the first publication.
Legal damage is calculated per work being violated. According to clause (1) Title 17, US. Section 504 (c), legal damages range from $ 750 per job to $ 30,000 per job, with two main exemptions:
- In the case of "innocent violation", the amount may be reduced to "no less than $ 200" for the effective range of $ 200 to $ 30,000 per job. "Innocent" is a technical term. Specifically, if the work carries a copyright notice, the offender can not claim innocence.
- In the case of "willful infringement" (again, "intentional" is a technical term), legal damages should not be more than $ 150,000 for an effective range of $ 750 to $ 150,000 per job.
Damages in copyright cases can be very high. In Lowry's Reports, Inc. v. Legg Mason Inc. , a 2003 lawsuit between the publisher of a stock analytics newsletter to a company that purchased a copy of a bulletin and made multiple copies for home use, the jury gave real damages for some bulletins and legal remedies for another bulletin - for $ 20 million.
Attorney fees
Attorney's fees and fees: Copyright Act Ã, § 505 allows the court, in its sole discretion, to provide costs to either party and to provide reasonable attorneys fees to the applicable parties. The court may (but is not required) award a reasonable "applicable" attorney fee. This applies to the winning plaintiff (copyright owner) and the defendant the victor (the defendant defendant). However, award attorney fees are not available to the government. As with legal damages, attorney's fees are not available if the infringed work is not registered at the time of the breach.
Criminal penalty
In addition to civil remedies, the Copyright Act provides for criminal prosecution in cases of intentional copyright infringement. There are also criminal sanctions for fraudulent copyright notices, deletion of copyright notice fraud, and false representation in the application for copyright registration. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act imposes criminal sanctions for certain solvency measures and disruptions to copyright management information. There is no criminal sanction for violating the attribution and integrity rights held by the author of the visual artwork.
Criminal penalties for copyright infringement include:
- A fine of not more than $ 500,000 or imprisonment for not more than five years, or both, for the first violation.
- Fine not more than $ 1 million or imprisonment for not more than 10 years, or both, for repeat infringement.
Nonprofit libraries, archives, educational institutions, and public broadcasters are exempt from criminal prosecution.
Penalties for fines first began in seven copies for audiovisual works, and a hundred copies for the sound recording.
Government violations
The US Government, its agencies and officers, and companies owned or controlled by it, are subject to copyright infringement. All claims of violations against the US that do not appear in a foreign country must be filed with the United States Federal Claims Court within three years of the act being infringed. Claims filed in the wrong court are dismissed for lack of jurisdiction of subject matter. The government and its agencies are also authorized to settle claims of offense outside the court.
Public domain
Working in the public domain is free for anyone to copy and use. Strictly speaking, the term "public domain" means that the work is not protected by any intellectual property rights at all (copyright, trademark, patent, or otherwise). However, this article discusses the public domain with respect to copyright only .
A work can enter the public domain in several different ways. For example, (a) the copyright protecting the work may have expired, or (b) the owner may have explicitly donated the work to the public, or (c) the work is not a copyrighted work type.
Orphan works
The problem of "orphan work" emerged in the United States with the enactment of the Copyright Act of 1976, which eliminates the need to register copyrighted works, instead of stating that all "original authorship of authorship in the media of real expressions" fall into copyright. status. Registration removal also removes the central recording location to track and identify the copyright holder. As a result, potential users of copyrighted work, for example, filmmakers or biographers, must assume that many of the works they may use are copyrighted. If planned use will not be permitted by law (for example, with fair use), they must themselves investigate the copyright status of each job they plan to use. Without a central database of copyright holders, identifying and contacting copyright holders is sometimes difficult; works included in this category may be considered "orphans".
See also
Cases
- List of copyright law cases Ã,§ United States
Fixation
- White-Smith Music Publishing Company v. Company Apollo (1908) Midway Manufacturing Co. v. Artic International, Inc. (N.D. Ill. 1982)
Orisinalitas
- Burrow-Giles Litografi Co v. Sarony (1884)
- Perpustakaan Seni Bridgeman v. Corel Corp. (SDNY 1999)
dikotomi Idea/ekspresi
- Baker v. Selden (1880)
- Whelan v. Jaslow (1986)
- Broderbund v. Bersama-sama (N.D. Cal. 1986)
- Computer Associates Int'l, Inc. v. Altai Inc. (2d Cir. 1992)
Fair use
- Suntrust v. Houghton Mifflin (11th Cir. 2001) ( re Parody)
References
Further reading
- United States Copyright Act (US Copyright Office, 2011).
- Copyright Act, Second Edition, Prof. Robert Gorman (Federal Judicial Center, 2006).
- Intellectual Property: Legal & amp; Information Society. Casing & amp; Materials (First Edition, 2014) James Boyle and Jennifer Jenkin.
- Towards Fair Usage Standards . Pierre N. Leval (103 Harvard Law Review 1105 (1990)).
External links
- United States Copyright Office
- Copyright Office - Reasonable Use Index
- Circular List of United States Copyright Office
- Cornell University: Copyright and Public Domain Terms in the United States (Archived Version)
- Digital copyright slider to define copyright status of a work
- "How do I know if Copyright is updated?". Online Book Pages . University of Pennsylvania.
- Copyright Timeline: History of Copyright in the US.
- The text of each version of the U.S. Copyright Act for 1909 to date
- Country Copyrights - This interactive map of the US state generates information about the state government's copyright status. The introductory text also links to information about the copyright status of the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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