True or False: Copyright Law

What is Copyright Law?

Before you can take a quiz about copyright law, you must first understand the definition of a copyright. A copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States to the authors of “original works of authorship,” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works. The Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to do and to authorize others to do the following:

• Reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords
• Prepare derivative works based upon the work
• Distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or other

transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending

• Perform the work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works
• Display the work publicly, 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
• Perform the work publicly (in the case of sound recordings) by means of a digital audio transmission

One additional thing to remember is that published and unpublished work is ordinarily protected by copyright from the moment of its creation until 70 years after the author’s death.

Now that you know a little more about copyrights and what they cover, here is a quiz that will shed some more light on the subject.

Which of the following is true of intellectual property?

True or False?

1. Copyright law protects ideas. – False

2. Copyright law protects all titles of books and movies. – False

3. Content on blogs and websites are in the public domain. – False

4. You need permission to summarize the ideas in a newspaper article. – False

5. Copyright is automatic upon the creation and fixation of a work. – True

6. Copyright law is part of a larger area of law called intellectual property. – True

7. If there is no “copyright” symbol on a work, then it is not protected by copyright. – False

8. Copyright registration is not mandatory for securing copyright in a work. – True

9. All permissions to use a copyright-protected work must be in writing. – False

10. When you purchase a painting, you own the physical painting however you do not own the copyright in the painting. – True