Copyrights

Legal right giving exclusive rights for a limited time within a territory to creative works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression. Copyrights protect EXPRESSION – not ideas, procedures, processes, systems, concepts, principles, discoveries, methods of operation, or mathematical concepts. Copyright only protects against copying and derivative works - independent creation not prohibited.Copyrights have traditional been important for book publishers, record companies and movie studios. In the past few decades, Copyrights have become important for technology companies, particularly start-ups, because software is protected by Copyrights.

• Often, Copyright is the only viable way to protect the software. It is the easiest, cheapest and quickest to obtain.

Obtaining a Copyright

Source of Copyright is a federal statute, specifically Title 17 of the United States Code Copyright is obtained simply by fixing the work of authorship in a tangible medium of expression Note - Copyright and ownership of the physical medium are different; owner of physical medium only gets rights given by copyright owner Verbal expression (e.g., business speech) is NOT protected no matter how long or complicated Work - needs to be written down for fixed in tangible medium of expression ,Why professional comedian writes down jokes before telling them

Life of Copyright

If person, life of author + 50 years
If work for hire/employment, 95 years

Regards,

Fatima Sahi