United States Copyright Laws
Copyright is a legal concept that gives the creator of an original work, exclusive rights to it. Copyright does not cover ideas and information, only the form or manner in which they are expressed. Generally, it is "the right to copy," but also gives the copyright holder the right to be credited for the work, to determine who may adapt the work to other forms, which may perform the work, which may financially benefit from it, and other, related rights. The original holder of the copyright may be the employer of the author rather than the author himself, if the work is a "work for hire."
The Copyright Clause of the United States Constitution authorized copyright legislation: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” The Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) of 1998 – alternatively known as the Sonny Bono Act, or pejoratively as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act – extended copyright terms in the United States by 20 years. Before the Act (under the Copyright Act of 1976) would last for the life of the author plus 50 years, or 75 years for a work of corporate authorship: the Act extended these terms to life of the author plus 70 years and for works of corporate authorship to 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever endpoint is earlier.
Copyright does not prohibit all copying or replication. In the United States, the fair use doctrine, codified by the Copyright Act of 1976 as 17 U.S.C. Section 107 permits some copying and distribution without permission of the copyright holder or payment to same. Copyright may also be licensed. Some jurisdictions may provide that certain classes of copyrighted works be made available under a prescribed statutory license (e.g. musical works in the United States used for radio broadcast or performance). A statutory license is an exception to copyright provided by law to use a copyrighted work without the explicit permission of its owner. The law may set royalties and conditions for some types of uses (such as television broadcasting over cable), and designate a copyright collecting agency or other body to receive or negotiate royalty payments. In a compulsory license, a government forces the holder of a copyright, or other exclusive rights to grant use to the state or others.
The most commonly known compulsory license is for non dramatic musical compositions. This provision of the Copyright Act allows a person to make a new sound recording of a musical work, if that has been previously distributed to the public, by or under the authority of the copyright owner. There is no requirement that the new recording be identical to the previous work, as the compulsory license includes the privilege of rearranging the work to conform it to the recording artist's interpretation. This does not allow the artist to change the basic melody or fundamental character of the work. In order to take advantage of this compulsory license the recording artist must provide notice and pay a royalty. The notice must be sent to the copyright owner, or if unable to determine the copyright owner, to the copyright office, within thirty days of making the recording, but before distributing physical copies. Failure to provide this notice would constitute copyright infringement. Though the compulsory license allows one to make and distribute physical copies of a song for a set royalty, the owner of the copyright in the underlying musical composition can still control public performance of the work or transmission over the radio. Often though, if the underlying musical work is well known, the work can be licensed for public performance through a Performance Right Organization such as ASCAP or BMI.
You can obtain a formal copyright, by filing an application with the Federal Copyright Office of the Library of Congress. A widely circulated strategy to avoid the cost of copyright registration is referred to as the "poor man's copyright". It proposes that the creator send the work to himself in a sealed envelope by registered mail, using the postmark to establish the date.
A copyright, or aspects of it, may be assigned or transferred from one party to another. Some of the rights may be transferred, or else the copyright holder may grant another party a non-exclusive license to copy and/or distribute the work in a particular region or for a specified period of time. Under the U.S. Copyright Act, a transfer of ownership in copyright must be memorialized in a writing signed by the transferor. For that purpose, ownership in copyright includes exclusive licenses of rights. Thus exclusive licenses, to be effective, must be granted in a written instrument signed by the grantor. No special form of transfer or grant is required. A simple document that identifies the work involved and the rights being granted is sufficient. Copyright law does not restrict the owner of a copy from reselling legitimately obtained copies of copyrighted works, provided that those copies were originally produced by or with the permission of the copyright holder.
The holder in a civil law court generally enforces copyrights, but there are also criminal infringement statutes in some jurisdictions. Failure to follow the proper procedures would place the copier at risk of an infringement suit. Because of the difficulty of following every individual work, copyright collectives or collecting societies and performing rights organizations have been formed to collect royalties for hundreds (thousands and more) works at once.
Video Websites and Copyright Infringement
Many people allege that online video websites, such as YouTube, are encouraging users to violate copyright laws. Despite various lawsuits and threats; video websites are protected under The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), providing that they comply with all the provisions set forth. The (DMCA) was signed into law by President Clinton on October 28, 1998. DMCA Title II, the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Act, creates a safe harbor for online service providers. The provisions of the act, provides protection by limiting the liability in cases where their customers are found guilty of copyright violations. To be protected the online service provider must promptly block access to allegedly infringing material (or remove such material from their systems) if they receive a notification claiming infringement from a copyright holder or the copyright holder's agent. The way to ensure that a video posted on the Web doesn't infringe someone else's copyright is for a person to create something completely original. All components, such as video, audio, and graphics should be a person's own creation. While videos that are direct copies of someone else's content are clear copyright violations, there are certain very limited circumstances in which the use of very short clips of a copyrighted video or song may be legal even without permission. This is known as the "fair use" principle of copyright law. Fair use is a doctrine in United States copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, such as use for scholarship or review. It is based on free speech rights provided by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Factors are weighed in each case to determine whether a use qualifies as a fair use. One important factor is whether the use will deprive the copyright owner of income. Unfortunately, weighing the fair use factors is often quite subjective. For this reason, the fair use road map is often tricky to navigate. Most fair use analysis falls into two categories: commentary and criticism; or parody. For example, if a person wishes to criticize a novelist, they should have the freedom to quote a portion of the novelist's work without asking permission. Absent this freedom, copyright owners could stifle any negative comments about their work. A parody is a work that ridicules another, usually well-known work, by imitating it in a comic way. By nature a parody demands some taking from the original work being parodied. Unlike other forms of fair use, a fairly extensive use of the original work is permitted in a parody in order to "conjure up" the original. The difficulty in claiming fair use is that there is no predictable way to guarantee that the use will actually qualify as a fair use. A person may believe that their use qualifies--but, if the copyright owner disagrees, they may have to resolve the dispute in a courtroom.
Judges use four factors in resolving fair use disputes:
1. The purpose and character of your use
2. The nature of the copyrighted work
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion taken, and
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market.
Some video Web providers don't screen content and material before it is shown to the public. Many people claim that artist and websites are getting a lot of exposure and attention from the use of infringed copyrighted material: therefore a lot of copyright abuse goes uncontested. In 2006, a skit from "Saturday Night Live," called "Lazy Sunday" drew large audiences to YouTube's site and generated lots of media attention before the company pulled the clip at the request of NBC. YouTube and other Web service providers do encourage and inform users of the consequences of posting copyright infringing content. Failure to follow guidelines set by the Web provider can lead to termination of the users account, and possible monetary damages if a copy owner takes them to court.
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