copyright law; copyright; intellectual property

Under the Copyright Act, a work made for hire is:

"1) A work prepared by an employee within the scope of his/her employment; or

2) A work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a mo-tion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire."

Under the Copyright Act, a "sound recording" is a work consisting of a series of musical, spoken, or other sounds, fixed in a tangible medium (e.g. a disk, tape, or phonorecord). However, the sounds accompanying a motion picture or other audiovisual work are not considered sound recordings. See 17 U.S.C. §101.

Under the Copyright Act, "publication" requires the distribution of a work to the public by a transfer in ownership (i.e. a sale, lease, rental, or lending). A public performance or display of a work alone does not constitute publication. See 17 U.S.C. §101.

Under the Copyright Act, "literary works" are "works, other than audiovisual works, expressed in words, numbers, or other verbal or numerical symbols or indicia, regardless of the nature of the material objects, such as books, periodicals, manuscripts, phonorecords, film, tapes, disks, or cards, in which they are embodied." See 17 U.S.C. §101.

Under the Copyright Act, a joint work is "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." See 17 U.S.C. §101.

Under the Copyright Act, a work is fixed in a tangible medium of expression "when its embodiment in a copy or phonorecord, by or under the authority of the author, is sufficiently permanent or stable to permit it to be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated for a period of more than transitory duration. A work consisting of sounds, images, or both, that are being transmitted, is 'fixed' . . .

Under the Copyright Act, a "'derivative work' is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted.

A copyright owner is the entity that owns the exclusive rights comprised within a copyright. See 17 U.S.C. §101.

In copyright law, a copy is the physical form in which the creative expression is fixed. Under the Copyright Act, "'Copies' are material object, other than phonorecords, in which a work is fixed by any method now known or later developed, and from which the work can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. The term 'copies' includes the material object, other than a phonorecord, in which the work is first fixed." 17 U.S.C. §101.

Under the Copyright Act, a compilation is a "work formed by the collection and assembling of preexisting materials or of data that are selected, coordinated, or arranged in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship. The term 'compilation' includes collective works." 17 U.S.C. 101. A compilation of mere facts may not be copyrighted. Instead, a compilation may only be copyrighted if there is a creative or original act involved, i.e. in the selection and arrangement of materials.