Copyright in Two Minutes

This video provides a brief overview of U.S. copyright law. This is not legal advice. Because of the outsized penalties for copyright infringement (ranging from $750 to $150,000 per act of infringement), if you think it is a close call whether you are infringing (or having your materials infringed), you need to get legal advice.

Most large Western countries have similar copyright laws, but there are material differences. While this look at US law is helpful to a general understanding, know that you cannot assume that compliance with US copyright law means you are in compliance with copyright law in other countries.

The first thing to understand about copyright law (as well as trademark and patent law) is that it is highly territorial. A U.S. copyright cannot be infringed by activities taking place entirely outside of the U.S. Similarly, a Canadian copyright cannot be infringed by activities taking place entirely outside of Canada. This sounds a lot more promising for would-be infringers than it really is, however. In most places, such as the U.S., a copyright is automatically created as soon as you put your work into a tangible medium. This means you do not have a copyright on a poem you’ve written and recited in your head, but the minute you write it down, a copyright arises. Even if you cannot infringe U.S. copyright law by seeing a copyrighted photograph in Canada, printing it in Canada, and hanging it on your wall in Canada, you will almost certainly have liability under Canadian copyright law (there are Canadian exceptions).

Turning back to U.S. Copyright Law, there have been a variety of approaches over time. The U.S. has experimented with requiring a copyright symbol, with requiring registration, and requiring renewals. The modern rule requires none of those things. The only formal filing required is if you decide to use the courts to enforce your copyright. In order to sue over an infringed copyright, the copyright must be registered with the U.S. Copyright Office. Statutory damages are available for copyright infringement, but to qualify for those the work must be registered with the U.S. Copyright Office within strict time periods. If you anticipate having a work that is likely to be infringed, you should register the work as soon as possible after creation of the work, and certainly not later than 3 months after the first publication of the work or 1 month after the copyright owner learns of the infringement.