COPYRIGHT - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

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COPYRIGHTAuthored

The Law Mind • 1811 words

Definition

Copyright is the legally recognized exclusive right of an author, artist, or other creator — or their assignees — to reproduce, distribute, publish, perform, display, and create derivative works from an original creative work for a limited period of time. The right is statutory in the United States, grounded in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the Constitution (the Copyright Clause), and governed federally by the Copyright Act of 1976 and its amendments.

Copyright attaches to original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression. Protected categories include literary works, musical compositions, dramatic works, choreography, pictorial and graphic works, audiovisual works, sound recordings, and architectural works. Copyright does not protect ideas, facts, systems, or methods of operation — only the particular expression of those things.

Two distinct senses of the right have long been recognized:

1. Common-law copyright: The author's natural right to control the first publication of an unpublished work. This right existed at common law prior to publication and was recognized by courts independent of statute. In the United States, the 1976 Act substantially federalized and preempted common-law copyright, eliminating the publication trigger that previously governed when statutory protection attached.

2. Statutory copyright: The congressionally created, time-limited exclusive right that now governs virtually all copyright protection in the United States. Under current law, copyright in works created after January 1, 1978 generally lasts for the life of the author plus seventy years. For works made for hire and certain anonymous works, the term is ninety-five years from publication or one hundred twenty years from creation, whichever expires first.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To obtain or secure a copyright for a creative work; also, informally, to flag a work for copyright violation or issue a copyright strike against a platform upload.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The right of an author or his assignee, under statute, to print and publish his literary or artistic work, exclusively of all other persons.

The gap is meaningful in two directions. First, the common use of "copyright" as a verb — meaning to register or claim copyright — misrepresents how the right actually arises: under modern U.S. law, copyright is automatic upon creation and fixation; registration is not required for ownership, only for certain remedies. Second, the Webster's 1913 definition correctly captures the statutory character but is narrowly confined to print and publication, missing the much broader bundle of rights that modern copyright comprises, including performance, display, digital distribution, and derivative-works control.

Common Confusion

Copyright is frequently conflated with patent and trademark, all three being species of intellectual property. The distinctions matter enormously: patent protects inventions and functional processes; trademark protects source-identifying marks in commerce; copyright protects expressive authorship. A logo may be both copyrightable (as artistic expression) and trademarked (as a source identifier), but the two rights arise under different statutes, require different maintenance, and protect different interests. Copyright is also confused with ownership of a physical object: purchasing a book or painting does not transfer the copyright in the work it embodies.

The idea-expression distinction is another persistent source of confusion. Copyright does not protect the underlying idea, fact, or concept — only the specific creative expression. A researcher or writer is free to use the facts, plot ideas, or historical information in a copyrighted work; what they may not copy is the author's particular expression of those elements.

Core Elements

For copyright to subsist in a work under U.S. law, the following must be present:

Originality: The work must be independently created by the author and must possess at least a minimal degree of creativity. Mere sweat of the brow — effort without creativity — is not sufficient.

Authorship: The work must be produced by a human author or, in the case of works made for hire, by an employer or commissioning party within defined statutory categories.

Fixation: The work must be fixed in a tangible medium of expression from which it can be perceived, reproduced, or communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.

When these elements are present, copyright arises automatically. No registration, notice, or publication is required under current U.S. law, though registration with the U.S. Copyright Office confers significant procedural advantages, including the ability to sue for statutory damages and attorney's fees.

Recognized Forms

/SUBTYPES

Work made for hire: Copyright in a work prepared by an employee within the scope of employment, or in certain commissioned works falling within statutory categories, vests initially in the employer or commissioning party rather than the individual creator.

Derivative work: A work based on one or more preexisting works — such as a translation, adaptation, or film version of a novel — is separately copyrightable to the extent of the new authorship, but only with authorization from the holder of copyright in the underlying work.

Collective work: A work in which a number of contributions, each separately copyrightable, are assembled into a collective whole (such as a periodical or anthology). Copyright in each contribution is distinct from copyright in the collective work as a whole.

Joint work: A work prepared by two or more authors with the intention that their contributions be merged into inseparable or interdependent parts of a unitary whole. Joint authors are co-owners of the resulting copyright.

Why It Matters in Research

The single most important navigational fact for researchers working in the Law Mind corpus is that copyright law has changed dramatically and repeatedly, and a source's date determines which legal regime applies to the work being discussed. The 1909 Act, the 1976 Act, and subsequent amendments — including the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 — each restructured duration, formalities, and the scope of rights in ways that make pre-1978 and post-1978 analysis largely incompatible without adjustment.

Historical sources in the corpus use "copyright" almost exclusively to mean the right of print reproduction and publication. Modern copyright's bundle of rights — including public performance, digital transmission, and the adaptation right — is entirely absent from nineteenth-century dictionary treatment. Researchers should not assume that a historical discussion of copyright encompasses digital or broadcast contexts.

The common-law/statutory copyright distinction, prominent in older sources, is largely obsolete under U.S. law post-1976 but remains critical for analyzing pre-1978 disputes and unpublished works. Bouvier's extended treatment of the common-law right reflects a legal world where publication was the dividing line between regimes; that framework will mislead a researcher approaching post-1978 materials.

Formalities present a major trap. Under the 1909 Act, failure to affix proper copyright notice on publication could result in forfeiture of copyright and immediate dedication to the public domain. Under the 1976 Act (as amended in 1989 following U.S. adherence to the Berne Convention), notice is no longer required. Historical sources uniformly treat notice and registration as integral to copyright existence — a position that is simply wrong for works created after March 1, 1989.

The government works exclusion (17 U.S.C. § 105) is a recurring research issue: works of the U.S. federal government are not eligible for copyright, but works by state governments occupy more complex territory, and works commissioned by the government from private authors may be protected. Historical dictionaries do not address this distinction with any precision.

Researchers should also note the connection between copyright and the First Amendment. Modern doctrine has grappled with whether copyright's prohibition on copying constitutes a restriction on speech — a question that historical sources could not have anticipated and that connects copyright research directly to First Amendment analysis in the constitutional corpus.

Historical Dictionary Support

The historical dictionaries converge on a core definition — copyright as the exclusive statutory privilege of multiplying and publishing copies of literary or artistic productions — but diverge on scope, duration, and the treatment of related rights.

Black's Law Dictionary frames copyright as statutory in origin and incorporeal in nature, emphasizing it as a departure from common-law property to a legislatively created privilege. This framing is consistent with the U.S. constitutional foundation but is less attentive to the common-law antecedents that Bouvier and Anderson develop more fully.

Bouvier's is the most expansive of the historical sources, distinguishing three classes of intellectual productions entitled to protection (writings capable of print or engraving reproduction; designs of form; and compositions capable of public performance) and engaging seriously with questions of piracy, fair quotation, and the relationship between translation and the original copyright. Bouvier's treatment of international copyright is noteworthy: it correctly observes that international protection flows from municipal law applied through treaty rather than from any inherent international right. The duration figures cited in Rapalje & Lawrence (twenty-eight years with reversion rights for encyclopedia and periodical contributions) reflect nineteenth-century English statutory terms that differ substantially from any current U.S. or U.K. framework.

Anderson's is notable for explicitly acknowledging the dual nature of copyright — common-law and statutory — and treating the author's common-law right as an "undoubted right" independent of legislative grant, a formulation that carries more natural-rights resonance than Black's purely positivist account.

What the historical dictionaries collectively miss: the performance right, the adaptation right, the concept of fair use as a structured doctrine (as opposed to a loose exception), and any engagement with works made for hire as a distinct category. Sound recordings, film, broadcast, and digital works are entirely absent, as would be expected. Researchers should treat historical dictionary definitions of copyright as capturing a narrow slice of what modern copyright encompasses.

Jurisdictional Note

In the United States, copyright is exclusively federal. State law claims that are equivalent to the rights protected by federal copyright are preempted under 17 U.S.C. § 301. Outside the United States, copyright law is governed by national statutes shaped by international treaty obligations, principally the Berne Convention and the TRIPS Agreement. Significant variations exist in moral rights protection, term duration for certain categories, and the treatment of fair dealing versus fair use. Researchers working with non-U.S. sources should not assume that U.S. doctrine translates directly.

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

Copyright, Trademark, and the First Amendment — Constitutional Law Encyclopedia
Government Works and Copyright — 17 U.S.C. § 105 — Intellectual Property Encyclopedia
Orphan Works, Mass Digitization, and Copyright Reform — Intellectual Property Encyclopedia

COPYRIGHTmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

The right of literary prop- erty as recognized and sanctioned by positive law. A right granted by statute to the author or originator of certain literary or artistic pro- ductions, whereby he is invested, for a lim- ited period, with the sole and exclusive priv- ilege of multiplying copies of the same and publishing and selling them. An incorporeal right, being the exclusive privilege of printing, reprinting, selling, and publishing his own original work, which the law allows an author. Wharton. Copyright is the exclusive right of the owner of an intellectual production to multiply and dispose of copies; the sole right to the copy, or to copy it. The word is used indifferently to signify the statu- tory and the common-law right; or one right is sometimes called "copyright" after publication, or statutory copyright; the other copyright before

COPYRIGHTmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

The exclusive privi- lege, secured according to certain legal forms, of printing, or otherwise multiply- ing, publishing, and vending copies of certain literary or artistic productions. The intellectual productions to which the law extends protection are of three classes. First, writings or drawings capable of being multiplied by the arts of printing or engraving. Second, de- signs of form or configuration capable of being reproduced upon the surface or in the shape of bodies. Third, inventions in what are called the useful arts. To the first class belong books, maps, charts, music, prints, and engravings; to the second class belong statuary, bas-reliefs, designs for orna- menting any surface, and configurations of bodies; the third class comprehends machinery, tools, man- ufactures, compositions of matter, and proc methods in the arts. According to the practice of legislation in England and America, the term copy- right is confined to the exclusive right secured to the author or proprietor of a writing or drawing, which may be multiplied by the arts of printing in any of its branches. Property in the other classes of intellectual objects is usually secured by letters- patent, and the interest is called a patent-right. But the But the distinction is arbitrary and conventional. processes or The foundation of all rights of this description is the natural dominion which every one has over his own ideas, the enjoyment of which, although they are embodied in visible forms or characters, he may, if he chooses, confine to himself or impart to others. But, as it would be impracticable in civil society to prevent others from copying such char- acters or forms without the intervention of positive law, and as such intervention is highly expedient, because it tends to the increase of human culture, knowledge, and convenience, it has been the prac- tice of civilized nations in modern times to secure and regulate the otherwise insecure and imperfect right which, according to the principles of natural justice, belongs to the author of new ideas. This has been done by securing an exclusive right of multiplying copies for a limited period, as far as the municipal law of the particular country extends. But, inasmuch as the original right, founded in the principles of natural justice, is of an imperfect character, and requires, in order to be valuable, the intervention of municipal law, the law of nations has not taken notice of it as it has of some other rights of property; and therefore all copyright is the result of some municipal regulation, and exists only in the limits of the country by whose legislation

COPYRIGHTmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

it is established. The international copyright which is established in consequence of a convention between any two countries is not an exception to this principle: because the municipal authority of each nation making such convention either speaks directly to its own subjects through the treaty itself, or is exerted in its own limits by some enactment made in pursuance of the international engagement. It was formerly doubtful in England whether copyright, as applied to books, existed at common law, and whether the first statute (8 Anne, с. 19) which undertook to regulate this species of incor- poreal property had taken away the unlimited duration which must have existed at common law if that law recognized any right whatever. The better opinion seems to be that the common law of England, before the statute of Anne, was supposed to admit the exclusive right of an author to multiply copies of his work by printing, and also his capacity to assign that right; for injunctions were granted in equity to protect it. See, on this subject, 4 Burr. 2303, 2408; 2 Bro. P. C. 145; 1 W. Bla. 801; 8 Swans. 673; 2 Ed. Ch. 327; 4 H. L. C. 815; 4 Exch. 145. But it has long been settled that, what- ever the common-law right may have been before the statute, it was taken away by the statute, and that copyright exists only by force of some statu- tory provision; 8 Pet. 591; 17 How. 454; Drone, Copyr. 1; 128 U. S. 244. In America, before the establishment of the con- stitution of the United States, it is doubtful whether there was any copyright at common law in any of the states; 8 Pet. 591. But some of the states had passed laws to secure the rights of authors, and the power to do so was one of their original branches of Bovereignty, afterwards ceded to congress. By art. 1, sect. 8, of the federal constitution, power was given to congress "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." Under this authority, an act of May 31, 1790, secured a copyright in maps, charts, and books; and an act of April 29, 1802, gave a similar protection to en- gravings. The persons entitled to secure a copyright, and what may be protected. The author, in- ventor, designer, or proprietor of any book, map, chart, dramatic or musical composi- tion, engraving, cut, print, or photograph or negative thereof, or of a painting, draw- ing, chromo, statue, statuary, and of models or designs intended to be perfected as works of the fine arts, and the executors, adminis- trators, or assigns of any such person, may secure the sole liberty of printing, reprint- ing, publishing, completing, copying, exe- cuting, finishing, and vending the same; and authors or their assigns may reserve the exclusive right of dramatizing the same ; and, in the case of a dramatic composition, of publicly performing or representing it, etc., or causing it to be performed or repre- sented by others; R. S. § 4952, as amended March 3, 1891, 1 Supp. 951. What may be copyrighted. Private let- ters may be copyrighted by their author; 2 Story 100; and so may abstracts of title; 3 Minn. 94. The compilations of existing material selected from common sources arranged and combined in original and useful form are the subject of a copyright, whether it consists wholly of selected matter or partly of original composition; Drone, Copyr. 152; Thus: (ibid.) dictionaries; 2 Sim. & Stu. 1; gazetteers; 5 Beav. 6; road and guide books; 1 Drew. 353; directories; L. R. 1 Εσ. 697: calendars: 12 Ves. 270; cata- logues; L. R. 18 Eq. 444; mathematical tables; 1 Russ. & Myl. 73; a list of hounds; L. R. 9 Eq. 324; a collection of statistics; L. R. 3 Ed. 718. An abridgment, one not a mere tran- script of the part of an original, may be copyrighted; Drone, Copyr. 158; 1 Story 11; so may a digest; Drone, Copyr. 158. One who prepares reports of decided cases may obtain a valid copyright for the parts of which he is the author or compiler;8 Pet. 591; 2 Blatchf. 165; 13 Wall. 608; but the reporter is not entitled to a coру- right in the opinion of the court, even though he took it down from the lips of the judge, nor in the head notes when pre- pared by the judge; 6 U. S. Pat. Off. Gaz. 932. The translation of a foreign work may be copyrighted, but this will not prevent the publishing of an independent transla- tion of the same work; 6 Biss. 477. The collection and arrangement of ad- vertisements in a trade directory are the subject of copyright, though each single advertisement is not; [1893] 1 Ch. 218. A compilation made from voluminous public documents may be copyrighted; 32 Fed. Rep. 202. A compilation of prices and quo tations on the stock exchange, printed on sheets and issued daily as a newspaper; 78 Law J. 120. A photographer, who makes no charge for photographing an actress in her public character, has the right to secure a copy- right for his own exclusive benefit; 59 Fed. Rep. 32

COPYRIGHTn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

The right of an author or his assignee, under statute, to print and publish his literary or artistic work, exclusively of all other persons. This right may be had in maps, charts, engravings, plays, and musical compositions, as well as in books.

COPYRIGHTv.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

To secure a copyright on.

copyrightverb

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.

To obtain or secure a copyright for some literary or other artistic work. | To flag for copyright violation, to copystrike.

copyrightnoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

The right by law to be the entity which determines who may publish, copy and distribute a piece of writing, music, picture or other work of authorship. | Such an exclusive right as it pertains to one or more specific works. | A violation of copyright law; copyright infringement.

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