Copyright law protects “original works of authorship.” The primary categories of material that can be copyrighted are as follows:

Anything that is written down is a literary work. Characters that are associated with a company qualify for protection. A character that looks like the Aflac duck or the GEICO gecko would infringe on the copyright that protects those characters. Derivative works, which are works that are new renditions of something that is already copyrighted, are also copyrightable. As a result of this provision, a musician who performs a rendition of a song copyrighted by Aerosmith can obtain a copyright on his or her effort. Of course, Aerosmith would have to consent to the infringement on its copyright of the original song before the new song could be used commercially, which is a common way that composers and bands earn an extra income.

The main exclusion from copyright law is that a copyright cannot protect an idea. For example, a business owner may have the idea to open a soccer-themed restaurant. The idea itself is not eligible for copyright protection. However, if the business owner writes down what the soccer-themed restaurant will look like and how it will operate, that description is copyrightable.

The main exclusion from copyright law is that copyrights cannot protect ideas.

Technically, a copyright exists the moment a work of authorship assumes a tangible form. You have to register the copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office (www.copyright.gov), however, if you want to bring a lawsuit for infringement. There are two steps that are normally taken to solidify a copyright, cumulating with registering a work with the copyright office.

First, you can enhance copyright protection for anything in written form by attaching the copyright notice, or copyright bug as it is sometimes called. The bug—a C inside a circle—typically appears in the following form: © 2008 Kitchen Sentry Inc. By placing this notice at the bottom of a document, an author (or company) can prevent people from copying the work without permission and claiming that they did not know that the work was copyrighted. Substitutions for the copyright bug include the word Copyright and the abbreviation Copr.

Second, you can obtain further protection by registering the work with the U.S. Copyright Office. Filing a simple form and depositing one or two samples of the work with the office completes the registration process. The need to supply a sample obviously depends on the nature of the item involved. Obviously, you could not supply one or two copies of an original painting. Filing promptly is recommended and makes it easier to sue for copyright infringement if necessary.

Copyrights last for a long time. Any work created on or after January 1, 1978, is protected for the life of the author plus 70 years.

Copyright infringement occurs when one work derives from another or is an exact copy or shows substantial similarity to the original work. It is a growing problem in the United States and in other countries. For example, less than a week after the original Harry Potter movie was released in the United States, bootleg video discs were reported for sale in at least two Asian countries.^[2] To prove infringement, a copyright owner is required to show that the alleged infringer had prior access to the copyrighted work, and the work is substantially similar to the owner’s.

There are many ways to prevent infringement. For example, a technique frequently used to guard against the illegal copying of software code is to embed and hide in the code useless information, such as the birth dates of the authors. It’s hard for infringers to spot useless information if they are simply cutting and pasting large amounts of code from one program to another. If software code is illegally copied and an infringement suit is filed, it’s difficult for the accused party to explain why (supposedly original) code includes the birth dates of its accusers. Similarly, some publishers of maps and other reference works deliberately include bits of phony information in their products, such as fake streets and nonexistent railroad crossings, to try to capture copiers. Again, it would be pretty hard for someone who copied someone else’s copyrighted street guide to explain why the name of a fake street was included.^[3]