The Rights of Authors

Authors have exclusive rights to reproduce, distribute, and most other uses of their original works. However, if copyright law were simply a set of rights for authors, their permission would be required before every use, even copying passages by hand. This is not the case.

The copyright law, in s103, makes it clear that copyright is not a tool by which an author may keep others from using the facts or data he or she has collected.

Except as limited by copyright laws, the exclusive rights that are reserved for the copyright owner to do and to authorize are:

1. to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;

2. to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;

3. to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;

4. in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;

5. in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and

6. in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.