Portal:United States Copyright Office

“ For purposes of copyright registration, fanciful costumes will be treated as useful articles. Costumes serve a dual purpose of clothing the body and portraying their appearance. Since clothing the body serves as a useful function, costumes fall within the literal defintion of useful article. In addition, the case law consistently treats costumes as useful articles, and a Copyright Office decision to differ substantially from these court decisions would appear difficult to justify. ”

“ Although a mask alone is not considered a useful article a legitimate question arises regarding registration practices in instance where a copyrightable mask is combined and sold as a unit with an otherwise and uncopyrightable costume. ”

“ The Copyright Office has generally refused to register claims to copyright in three-dimensional aspects of clothing or costume design on the ground that articles of clothing and costumes are useful articles that ordinarily contain no artistic authorship separable from their overall utilitarian shape. A two-dimensional design applied to the surface of the clothing may be registered but this claim to copyright is generally made by the fabric producer rather than the garment or costume designer. ”