Things every client should know about copyrights

What legal rights does a copyright owner have?

The copyright statute (i.e., the black-letter text of the Copyright Act appearing at Title 17 of the United States Code) provides the following answer to this question:

“Subject to sections 107 through 120, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive right to do and to authorize any of the following: (1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords; (2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work; (3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending; (4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly; and (5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly. Title 17, UNITED STATES CODE, § 106 (emphasis and bracketed material added).

Thus, if Alpha Corp. is a financial consulting firm, and it owns the copyright rights in the format it uses for a highly successful Investor’s Report it prepares for its clients, then, until the copyright expires, Beta Corp cannot (a) copy Alpha’s report template, or (b) make a modified or improved version of Alpha’s report (termed a “derivative work”), in the U.S., without Alpha Corp’s permission, or it will risk being sued for copyright infringement.