History of the Copyright Law

The Copyright Law is Title 17 of the United States Code. Therefore, it is a Federal Law and supercedes any state or local law. We the people of the United States have had a copyright law (the first statue) since 1790. It is part of the Constitution of the United States of America, Article I, Section 8. It was created by Congress to protect original creative works of authorship. We are now in the 21st century and have advance technology. The laws have been updated to protect the creative works of that technology.

What you can Copyright

“Original Creative Works of Authorship” are what you yourself create. An employer can claim Authorship of creative works of an employee if it is created while working, be it graphics, literature, designs, or other creative works. The law gives the authors exclusive rights to any profits to be made from the creative works and how it can or cannot be used by any other person or organizations.

Protection of Works of Authorship

Your works are protected under the copyright law as soon as your works are created and fixed. Creative works do not have to be register to fall under the copyright law. The creative works do not have to display the copyright symbol © to fall under the protection of the copyright law. To insure copyright protection or if you ever need to file a copyright infringement lawsuit, the work must be registered with the Copyright Office first. The fee to register a copyright range from minimal on up, depending on how much work is involved in the registration. The length of a copyright term for individual’s unpublished works is author’s life plus 70 years. The copyright term for published works is, 95 years from first publication.

Infringement of Copyright Law

Infringement of the copyright law occurs when you use, without permission or license, someone else’s creative works, no matter how minimal or small the works are, it is still an infringement. When you are putting together a multimedia design or Web Design, all the pieces of the design should be your own creative works. If you are using works that have been created by others and combining them with your work, you will need permission or license from the original creators to avoid violating their copyright. Avoid infringement litigation; the legal fees could reach tremendous amounts. Most companies have a team of legal advisers and representatives to guide them with the legal issues involved with copyright.

What Works to use

Your own creative works are the best to use. The works that fall into the “public domain” are safe works to use (just make sure that they are in the public domain). Then there are the works that fall under what is called “fair use”. This is a very complicated issue and you should understand what “fair use” is before using them. To avoid litigation it is important you get license or permission to use the creative works of others. The laws are complex and you should understand them, and get legal advice when you do not.