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Copyright: What can be copyrighted

The Copyright Law grants copyright protection only to "original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression." A work does not have to be new or highly creative to qualify as an original work of authorship. It simply must owe its origin to a particular author.

The law also states that a fact is not an original work of authorship. Facts owe their origin to the thing or person that makes them happen. For example, if a reporter wrote a newspaper article about a building fire, she could not copyright the facts about the fire because those facts do not owe their origin to her.

Facts discovered through research, no matter how new and amazing, also do not owe their origin to the researcher. However, the ways facts are recorded — style, choice and arrangement of words — are copyrightable. For example, although an author could not copyright an idea for a new foreign policy strategy, she could copyright her expression of that idea in a newspaper article.

An article containing pre-existing material or data can qualify as an original work of authorship if the material and data are "selected, coordinated or arranged" in such a manner that the end product owes its origin to the author. For example, an article about a federal law that includes quotations and facts from the Congressional Record would be copyrightable if the new arrangement of this pre-existing material constituted an original work of authorship.

A copyrightable work must be produced in a format that can be perceived, reproduced and communicated over time. Newspapers, magazines, photographs and most other forms of media, including the Internet, easily satisfy this criteria. Radio and television news programs are recorded on paper or tape, and thus are fixed in a tangible medium of expression.

For example, the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco (9th Cir.) has found that a news service that videotapes news events with its own cameras and licenses broadcast stations and networks to use its "raw" footage during their news programs owns the copyright for the tapes.²

Notes

2. Los Angeles News Service v. Tullo, 973 F.2d 791 (9th Cir. 1992).

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