Copyright law does not protect ideas, procedures, processes, methods of operation, concepts, principles or discoveries, regardless of the form in which they are described, explained, illustrated or embodied in a work.
Only the expression of the idea, concept or principal is protected, provided it is original, creative expression that is fixed in some kind of tangible medium. Short phrases, slogans, titles, character names, and characteristics of fictional characters not protectable under copyright law may be protected under trademark law or unfair competition law.
Subject to fair use and other limitations, copyright owners enjoy a number of exclusive rights. A copyright owner has the right to do or permit any of the following:
- to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords
- to prepare derivative works based on the underlying copyrighted work
- to distribute copies of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease or lending
- in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly
- in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic or sculptural works, including individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly
- in the case of sound recordings, to perform the work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission