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Lesson 3 - Copyright 2:

Pretty Much All Writings Are Copyrighted

Let´s begin with how to obtain a copyright. What do you need to do to get a copyright for something you´ve written?

That´s right: To get a copyright for something you´ve written, you need to do *absolutely nothing* except for writing it down.

So the e-mail you send to a friend? It´s copyrighted. (Copyright law applies to things you write electronically, even if they never end up actually "written" on a piece of paper.)

The personal Web page you´ve put up? It´s copyrighted.

The memo you write on the job? It´s copyrighted, though under the "work made for hire" doctrine, the copyright is owned by your employer. The general rule is that anything you write within the scope of your employment is owned by the employer. (The rule may be different if you´re an independent contractor, but the legal distinction between employee and non-employee is too complex for this seminar.)

There are only two basic limitations here:

  1. Extremely short writings - for instance, several words or shorter - or extremely simple drawings are generally not copyrighted.

  2. If you simply copy what someone else has done, without adding anything new of your own, your copy is generally not copyrighted.

Larry LessigDavid PostEugene Volokh



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