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Copyright Law is Federal Law. Important enough
to be addressed in the Constitution, the concept of copyright
is intended both to protect “original works of authorship”
by assigning certain exclusive rights to the author for
a limited time and to “Promote the Progress of Science
and useful Arts” by encouraging others to build upon the
ideas and information presented in the works. It is this
tension between author rights and public rights that copyright
law attempts to address.
The law has four components:
- U.S.
Constitution Article 1, section 8;
- Title
17 of the United States Code;
- Code
of Federal Regulations (CFR) section 37; and
- Court
decisions.
The United States Copyright Office is the government
agency charged with copyright matters. Much of the information
provided in the following pages is derived from the Copyright
Office site. |
