Copyright holder

“ The free software and open source software communities have inspired what is sometimes called ‘open content.’ Some copyright holders have made books, music, and other creative works available under licenses that give anyone permission to copy and make other uses of the works without specific permission or a royalty payment. Creative Commons hopes to build on the work of these pioneers by creating a menu of license provisions that people can combine to make their work available for copying and creative reuses (...) ”

“ Article 170 Any person may request from the competent ministry to be granted a personal license for the reproduction or translation, or both, of any work protected under this Law, without the authorization of the author and for the purposes indicated in the next paragraph, against equitable remuneration to the author or his successor, to the extent that such license is not in contradiction with the normal exploitation of the work or does not unduly prejudice the legitimate interests of the author or the copyright holders. ”

“ We as a society give limited property rights to creators to encourage them to produce science and culture; at the same time, we guarantee that all works eventually will become part of the public domain and, in the meantime, we give other creators and speakers the opportunity to use copyrighted material without permission or payment in some circumstances. ”

“ First, assume that a work is protected by copyright—even if it does not include a copyright notice—unless you know it’s in the public domain. Second, copyright notices that purport to tell you what you may or may not do can’t limit your fair use rights or other rights under the Copyright Act, but they may allow you to do more than the law would otherwise permit. Third, if you agree by contract not to use a work in a particular way, you will abide by the contract. ”

“ Helvering, 308 U.S. 389, 394 (1940) . ↑ For a book-length critique of the “faithful agent” theory, see William N. Eskridge, Jr., Dynamic Statutory Interpretation (1994) . ↑ For example, the literal text of the copyright statute appears to excuse all unauthorized copying from liability for copyright infringement—precisely the opposite of the legislative purpose. First, the statute confers on copyright holders the “exclusive right [] . . . to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies.” 17 U.S.C. § 106 (1) (2006) (emphasis added) . “Copies,” the statute tells us, “are material objects . . . ”

“ At common law, an author has a property in his manuscript, and may obtain redress for any attempt to deprive him of it, and the copyright act provides that nothing in the act shall limit the right of the author, at common law, or in equity, to prevent the copying, publication or use of an unpublished work, without his consent and it gives him the right to damages should this be done. ”

“ Today, the fact that a work is out-of-print may work for, or against, fair use. That a work is out-of-print may work in favor of the copyright owner because royalties from copying are the only source of income from the work. ”

“ Where outside persons contribute special articles, the presumption would probably be that the ownership of the copyright, for that special publication, vested in the employer, but that neither he, without the author's consent, nor the author, without his consent, could publish the article in other competing shape. ”

“ Where copyright in any work has been infringed, the owner of the copyright shall, except as otherwise provided by this Act, be entitled to all such remedies by way of injunction or interdict, damages, accounts, and otherwise, as are or may be conferred by law for the infringement of a right. ”

“ The CC0 license’s Statement of Purpose, which lacks any parallel in the Public Domain Dedication, may supply a useful interpretive guide to courts or other authorities called upon to construe the license insofar as it explicates and justifies the author’s conscious determination to forgo proprietary rewards in favor of building the commons. For lawyers and policymakers steeped in copyright’s historically dominant proprietary-production paradigm, this concise introduction to the open-content movement’s alternative worldview may be highly valuable. ”

“ Nation Enterprises that the fourth factor, which assesses the harm the secondary use can cause to the market for, or the value of, the copyright for the original, “is undoubtedly the single most important element of fair use.” ”

“ Thus the author of a work of art has two separate properties, the painting, statue or other work in itself, on the one hand, and the copyright or the right to copyright on the other, neither of which is transferred by the transfer of the other unless both are specifically included in the transfer. ”

“ No copyright vests in the proprietor of a collective work unless the author is employed under a contract of service or apprenticeship, or there is an assignment in writing; and when the copyright vests in the proprietor of a periodical by reason of a contract of service or apprenticeship, the author may restrain separate publication. The passing of the copyright by reason of the work having been executed on commission is confined to the cases of engravings, photographs and portraits. The self-governing dominions are given a free hand in copyright matters. ”

“ If the copyright owner makes the work available on the Web for a fee—either as part of a database or as a stand-alone product—or if the library can purchase reprints, the work is being commercially exploited and the exemption does not apply. ”

“ As long as a work is in manuscript and copies are not offered for sale it enjoys the same protection, under the common law, as if properly entered for copyright. It is an infringement of copyright to copy, reprint, publish, or vend the whole or any portion of a copyright work for any purpose whatsoever. ”

“ For greater certainty, it is deemed always to have been the law that a right of action for infringement of copyright may be assigned in association with the assignment of the copyright or the grant of an interest in the copyright by licence. ”

“ Does the copyright law sustain property in the mere title of a book? The tendency of thought is that the law of trade-marks affords such protection as there is for a title, as distinguished from the body or contents; that the purpose of the copyright law is to secure the exclusive right of publishing the substantial work, and that it protects the title only as being a part of the work. ”

“ The question we are to consider is whether the publication of the defendant infringes the copyright of the complainants, and we think it does not. A copyright gives the author or the publisher the exclusive right of multiplying copies of what he has written or printed. ”

“ Another test proposed is “whether you find on the part of the defendant an animus furandi—an intention to take for the purpose of saving himself labour.” No one, it has been said, has a right to take, whether with or without acknowledgment, a material and substantial portion of another’s work, his arguments, his illustrations, his authorities, for the purpose of making or improving a rival publication. When the materials are open to all, an author may acquire copyright in his selection or arrangement of them. ”

“ An author's theories, suggestions, and speculations, or the systems, plans, methods, and arrangements of an originator, derive no such protection from the statutory copyright of the book in which they are set forth ”

“ Definition of copyright The copyright to literary or artistic work consists in the exclusive right to dispose of the same, to publish, sell, and translate the same, or to authorize its translation, and to reproduce the same in any manner either entirely or partially. ”

“ When a man takes out a copyright for any of his writings or works, he impliedly agrees that at the expiration of that copyright such writings or works shall go to the public, and become public property. ”

“ I regard the Web today as a public domain. That means in practice the notion of copyright on it disappears: everyone can copy everyone else. Anything original risks being copied at once if copyrights are not formally registered or if works are available without payment facilities. ”

“ I think so, provided the talking-machine record was inserted in sections 5 and 18.
There should be no question but that the particular characteristic utterances of a singer, or recitationist, or of an actor, or of an orator, or the particular instrumentation of a pianist, or leader of an orchestra, etc., independent of the composition itself, whether it is copyrighted or not, should be equally entitled to protection, as a photograph or reproduction of a work of art. ”

“ It would, of course, be impossible for a publisher to pay an artist the sum at which he values his entire copyright, simply that he might reproduce his picture in the form of a black-and-white block in a magazine, and it has consequently become quite common for the artist to grant a licence for any and every particular form of reproduction as it may be required, so that he may grant the right of reproduction in one particular form in one particular publication, and even for a particular period of time, reserving to himself thus the right to grant similar licences to other publishers. ”

“ Generally, as permitted by what is known as the first-sale doctrine, the copyright owner’s right to distribute a copyrighted work does not prevent the owner of a lawful copy of the work from selling, renting, lending, or otherwise disposing of the lawful copy. ”

“ This means that if you research a copyright question, you need only use federal sources of law such as the United States Code and decisions from federal courts.
Copyright does not place an author’s work in a lockbox. The primary purpose of copyright is not to compensate creators. The U.S. Supreme Court has stated, many times, that copyright is a means to a greater societal end: the dissemination and promotion of knowledge. [10] As librarians, we promote the dissemination of knowledge. ”

“ Fair Use (Section 107)
Copyright owners’ rights are important, but Congress did not put copyrighted works in a lockbox. A copyright owner does not have an absolute monopoly over the use of his or her work; owners’ rights are subject to other provisions of the Copyright Act that permit certain uses of copyrighted works. ”

“ Open-content licenses preserve a commons of informational works because it is well settled (as Jacobsen illustrates) that the author of a work may attach enforceable conditions to authorized uses of the work. [301] There is no comparably settled doctrine, however, in favor of the making of a permanent and non-terminable license of rights under copyright. The statute, to the contrary, expressly circumscribes private action to create a non-terminable license. ”

“ When an original work of art is copyrighted, but is not published by reproduction of copies for sale or distribution, it is uncertain under the law, as in the case of dramatic and musical compositions, from what date the copyright protection runs and whether the sole right of reproducing copies for sale terminates at the end of a statutory term beginning with the registration of the original work or with its publication by the reproduction of copies for sale. ”

“ A copyright, dear sir Harry, is a legal right to a copy. Suppose you and your friend Delano, four doors away, should publish a book that proved as popular as—well, let us say Trilby, or Ben-Hur, or Uncle Tom's Cabin did. If you send out a few copies and put upon them no legal proprietary mark, other persons seeing the demand could and would take your work, make copies of it, sell them, pocket the money, and give you nothing for what perhaps cost you a great deal of effort. ”

“ Courts are more likely to find an infringement when the copyright owner incurs financial harm due to unauthorized or uncompensated copying. In 1985, the Supreme Court called the fourth factor the most important element of fair use. ”

“ It has been argued that, as the two properties are so distinct, the owner of the copyright ought to have the right of access to the picture for the purpose of exercising his right to reproduce it. But it is easy to see that it would destroy the value of art property if proprietors knew that at any moment they might be forced to surrender their work for the purpose of reproduction, though for a time only. ”

“ I think it's important for people on the web to understand that copyright is a social contract that's designed for the public good — where the public includes both authors and readers. This means that authors should have the right to exclusive use of their creative works for limited times, as is expressed in current copyright law. ”

“ It, of course, does no such thing, and the copyright of any picture sold in these circumstances, without the necessary document from the purchaser, must be lost to the artist, and pass irrevocably into the public domain.
In a work of art the work itself and the copyright are two totally distinct properties, and may be held by different persons. The conditions differ materially from those of a work of literature, in which as a rule there is no value apart from publication. ”

“ The principal requisites to secure copyright protection included: (1) providing notice of copyright in proper form; (2) registration of copyright in the work; and (3) depositing of a copy of the work with the Library of Congress. [157] Authors who published their works without strictly observing the applicable formalities forfeited copyright protection; [158] indeed, courts often referred to the author’s failure to comply with formalities as a “dedication” of the work to the public domain. ”