[TowerTalk] 17 USC 102, 107

[Fred Hopengarten]

From:
Atty. Fred Hopengarten  K1VR               781/259-0088
Six Willarch Road
Lincoln, MA 01773-5105
permanent e-mail address:  fhopengarten@mba1972.hbs.edu
if sending attachments:  k1vr@gis.net

Gentlemen:

The simplest of analyses of copyright law involve two questions:
1. Is it protected? (Most often answered by 17 USC 102), and
2. If protected, was this a "fair use"? (See 17 USC 107).

If the work is not protected, you never get to the question of fair use.
You may read the sections and commentaries, one at a  time, by searching
for them on http://uscode.house.gov/usc.htm

You may download the entire Copyright statute in WinWord, by going to
http://uscode.house.gov/download.htm


    17 USC Sec. 102                                              01/05/99
    TITLE 17 - COPYRIGHTS
    CHAPTER 1 - SUBJECT MATTER AND SCOPE OF COPYRIGHT
    Sec. 102. Subject matter of copyright: In general
      (a) Copyright protection subsists, in accordance with this title,
    in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of
    expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be
    perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly
    or with the aid of a machine or device.  Works of authorship
    include the following categories:
        (1) literary works;
        (2) musical works, including any accompanying words;
        (3) dramatic works, including any accompanying music;
        (4) pantomimes and choreographic works;
        (5) pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works;
        (6) motion pictures and other audiovisual works;
        (7) sound recordings; and
        (8) architectural works.
      (b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of
    authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method
    of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the
    form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied
    in such work.

[K1VR comment:  Those are the subjects of patents, not copyrights.]

Comment by the Legislative Office of the U.S. House of Representatives:


      The four items defined in section 101 are ''literary works,''
    ''pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works,'' ''motion pictures and
    audiovisual works'', and ''sound recordings''.  In each of these
    cases, definitions are needed not only because the meaning of the
    term itself is unsettled but also because the distinction between
    ''work'' and ''material object'' requires clarification.  The term
    ''literary works'' does not connote any criterion of literary merit
    or qualitative value: it includes catalogs, directories, and
    similar factual, reference, or instructional works and compilations
    of data.  It also includes computer data bases, and computer
    programs to the extent that they incorporate authorship in the
    programmer's expression of original ideas, as distinguished from
    the ideas themselves.


      Nature of Copyright. Copyright does not preclude others from
    using the ideas or information revealed by the author's work.  It
    pertains to the literary, musical, graphic, or artistic form in
    which the author expressed intellectual concepts.  Section 102(b)
    makes clear that copyright protection does not extend to any idea,
    procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept,
    principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is
    described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.
      Some concern has been expressed lest copyright in computer
    programs should extend protection to the methodology or processes
    adopted by the programmer, rather than merely to the ''writing''
    expressing his ideas.  Section 102(b) is intended, among other
    things, to make clear that the expression adopted by the programmer
    is the copyrightable element in a computer program, and that the
    actual processes or methods embodied in the program are not within
    the scope of the copyright law.

      Section 102(b) in no way enlarges or contracts the scope of
    copyright protection under the present law.  Its purpose is to
    restate, in the context of the new single Federal system of
    copyright, that the basic dichotomy between expression and idea
    remains unchanged.

To look up the statute on "fair use," see 17 USC 107.

-- Fred K1VR

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