0.2 The scope of copyright law

Module 3: the scope of copyright law

Learning objective

This module discusses the kinds of creations and the kinds of activities that copyright law does and does not cover.

 case study

Angela is considering tape recording her lectures, depositing the tapes in the library, and perhaps selling copies of the recordings to an online publisher. During some of her lectures, Angela plans to perform some traditional folk music. She asks Nadia for advice concerning her rights and obligations.

Lesson

What does copyright law protect?

The definition of a literary or artistic work

Copyright law regulates the making of copies of literary or artistic works. Article 2, Section 1 of the  Berne Convention  defines literary and artistic works as follows:

The expression "literary and artistic works" shall include every production in the literary, scientific and artistic domain, whatever may be the mode or form of its expression, such as books, pamphlets and other writings; lectures, addresses, sermons and other works of the same nature; dramatic or musical works; choreographic works and entertainments in dumb show; musical compositions with or without words; cinematographic works to which are assimilated works expressed by a process analogous to cinematography; works of drawing, painting, architecture, sculpture, engraving and lithography; photographic works to which are assimilated works expressed by a process analogous to photography; works of applied art; illustrations, maps, plans, sketches and three-dimensional works relative to geography, topography, architecture or science.

To be entitled to protection, a work falling into this broad category must satisfy two basic requirements:  originality  and  fixation .

The concept of originality

Neither the  Berne Convention  nor the  TRIPS Agreement  expressly requires originality for a work to be protected by copyright. However, almost all countries require some level of originality for a work to qualify for copyright protection. Unfortunately, there is no standard international minimum of originality. Each country independently sets the originality standard that a work must meet. In some countries, such as the United States and Canada, originality requires only "independent conception" and a "bare minimum" of creativity. In other countries, such as France, Spain and developing countries influenced by the civil-law tradition, originality is defined as the “imprint of the author’s personality” on the work.

In most countries, the work of authorship need not be novel, ingenious, or have aesthetic merit in order to satisfy the originality requirement. For example, the U.S. Supreme Court in  Feist Pulbications v. Rural Telephone Service Co. , 499 U.S. 340 (1991), defined originality as requiring only that the work be independently created by the author and that it possess “at least some minimal degree of creativity.” According to the Court, the “requisite level of creativity is extremely low” and a work need only “possess some creative spark no matter how crude, humble or obvious it might be.”