Copyright owner

“ 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. ”

“ Once contacted, some copyright owners will give permission for free, while others will require a fee or seek to impose conditions on your use. Good faith negotiation will probably result in a satisfactory outcome, but some license fees will be too high for you, or the owner simply won't want her work used a particular way. If you can't get permission and no copyright exceptions apply, then you will just have to find an alternative to the material you wanted to use. ”

“ That would be no more permissible than a contract between a copyright owner and one who has no copyright, or a contract between two copyright owners or patentees, to restrain the competitive distribution of the copyrighted or patented articles in the open market. ”

“ Owner may sell or otherwise dispose of a lawful copy: but may not lease or lend sound recordings or computer programs for direct or indirect commercial advantage library/school lending exemption of sound recordings and computer programs is permitted Under section 106 (3) of the Copyright Act, the right to distribute a copyrighted work is reserved to the copyright owner. But the distribution is limited by the "first sale doctrine", found in section 109 of the Act. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 is the contention of the appellant that the circuit court erred in failing to give effect to the provision of § 4952, protecting the owners of the copyright in the sole right of vending the copyrighted book or other article, and the argument is that the statute vested the whole field of the right of exclusive sale in the copyright owner; that he can part with it to another to the extent that he sees fit, and may withhold to himself, by proper reservations, so much of the right as he pleases. ”

“ The Copyright Act does not require rights holders to sell their works in the marketplace; they do not face a “use it or lose it” regime of protection. [128] Beyond the threshold question of protection, even within the fair use analysis, courts have found valid reasons why market harm analysis should weigh against the use when the copyright owner may have had creative or economic reasons for holding back the work. ”

“ The author of a work is the first owner of the copyright, except in the case of a work done on order or in the course of contract employment. The owner of a copyright may by an assignment in writing assign his rights wholly or partially, and either generally or as limited to any part of His Majesty's dominions, or [Pg 378] for the whole term of copyright or any part thereof, or license accordingly. But no assignment otherwise than by will shall be operative beyond twenty-five years from the death of the author, when the copyright reverts to his natural heirs, following Spanish precedent. ”

“ But in the Parliament of 1911 the bill emerged from committee stage with an elaborate proviso, based on the American precedent, excepting from the definition of infringement contrivances for the mechanical reproduction of sounds on (I) proof that the copyright owner has previously acquiesced in mechanical reproduction, (2) prescribed notice of intention, and (3) payment of royalty of 2 1/2 or 5 per cent with a minimum of a halfpenny for each record, or in the case of different works on the same record, to each copyright proprietor. ”

“ Each Party shall provide procedures, whether judicial or administrative, in accordance with that Party’s legal system, and consistent with principles of due process and privacy, that enable a copyright owner that has made a legally sufficient claim of copyright infringement to obtain expeditiously from an Internet Service Provider information in the provider’s possession identifying the alleged infringer, in cases in which that information is sought for the purpose of protecting or enforcing that copyright. ”

“ A perforated roll presenting a composition only so similar to a public and copyrighted composition as to raise a question of infringement if it were a staff notation, instead of a perforated roll, will raise the same question as a perforated roll. The copyright owner will reap an advantage, it may be, of 10 per cent, upon the selling price of the sheet music, let us say 15 to 25 cents for every copy sold. He will reap a profit of $10 as a minimum upon every copy which he can find in the possession of the alleged infringer, his agents, or employees. ”

“ The legitimacy of that market is not compromised simply because these producers have authorized home taping of their programs without demanding a fee from the home user. The copyright law does not require a copyright owner to charge a fee for the use of his works, and as this record clearly demonstrates, the owner of a copyright may well have economic or noneconomic reasons for permitting certain kinds of copying to occur without receiving direct compensation from the copier. ”

“ Section 106 Copyright Owner's Rights Reproduction Derivative works Public distribution Public performance Public Display Digital audio transmission of sound recordings Importation
For works of visual art (106a)
Attribution Integrity You may infringe someone's copyright when you reproduce a copyrighted work; prepare derivative works based on a work; or distribute, perform or display a work publicly. [1] But engaging in these activities without permission doesn't necessarily result in copyright infringement ”

“ Under 17 U.S.C. §§ 504 (a) (1) and (b) , a copyright owner is permitted to recover his own “actual damages,” including lost profits and “reasonable royalty rates,” or what a willing buyer would have been reasonably required to pay a willing seller as a licensing fee for the actual use of the copyrighted material by the infringers. ”

“ I can conclude only that Congress, like the Register, intended to rely on the fair use doctrine, and not on a per se exemption for private use, to separate permissible copying from the impermissible. [16]
When Congress intended special and protective treatment for private use, moreover, it said so explicitly. One such explicit statement appears in § 106 itself. The copyright owner’s exclusive right to perform a copyrighted work, in contrast to his right to reproduce the work in copies, is limited. ”

“ 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. ”

“ L.J. 443, 469–70 (2005) (summarizing German court ruling rejecting claim that GPL effectuated a waiver or abandonment of copyright) ; Natalie Heineman, Computer Software Derivative Works: The Calm Before the Storm, 8 J. High Tech. L. 235, 262 (2008) (“Calling source code ‘open’ or ‘free’ under the GPL or its equivalent may give the false impression that the copyright owner has waived her copyrights in the work, thereby releasing the work into the public domain.”) ”

“ But it is certainly obvious that so vast and important a right as that conferred by the copyright statute should not be vested and given prima facie validity in anyone who has merely the effrontery to declare even that he is the owner or that he is the proprietor. ”

“ The companies making records for talking machines take one copy of a copyrighted piece of music and produce by their method a thousand or more disks, cylinders, or perforated rolls. If they would buy one copy from my publishers and owners of my copyright and sell that one copy, I would have no objection; but they take the copyrighted copy and make what they claim is a noncopyrighted copy, sell it, and do not give the owner of the copyright a penny of royalty for its use ”

“ ACTUAL DAMAGES AND PROFITS.—The copyright owner is entitled to recover the actual damages suffered by him or her as a result of the infringement, and any profits of the infringer that are attributable to the infringement and are not taken into account in computing the actual damages. In establishing the infringer's profits, the copyright owner is required to present proof only of the infringer's gross revenue, and the infringer is required to prove his or her deductible expenses and the elements of profit attributable to factors other than the copyrighted work. ”

“ The work could be in the public domain because the copyright owner failed to comply with one or more of the formalities required by U.S. copyright law, for instance by publishing the work without a proper copyright notice, failing to renew the copyright, or by failing to comply with the manufacturing clause or ad interim provisions of the copyright law. ”

“ We think every consideration of the nature of the property and the things to be accomplished supports the conclusion that the statute means to give to the assigns of the original owner of the right to copyright an article the right to take out the copyright secured by the statute, independently of the ownership of the article itself. ”

“ Thus, although every commercial use of copyrighted material is presumptively an unfair exploitation of the monopoly privilege that belongs to the owner of the copyright, noncommercial uses are a different matter. ”

“ The Copyright Office is issuing final regulations establishing procedures that govern the filing of Notices of Intent to Enforce copyright (NIEs) and the registering of copyright claims to restored works as required by the Uruguay Round Agreements Act. The Act automatically restores copyright for certain foreign works effective January 1, 1996. Although restoration is automatic, the copyright owner may file a Notice of Intent to Enforce the Restored Copyright with the Copyright Office in order to enforce rights against reliance parties. ”

“ In the case of a copyrighted musical composition, the copyright owner has an exclusive right to record the work on mechanical instruments such as phonograph records, up to the time he himself records the composition or licenses someone else to record it. ”

“ This doctrine generally provides that if you have created a copyrightable work within the scope of your employment, the employer is the owner of, and controls the economic rights in the copyrighted work, even though you are the author and may retain your moral rights. Independent contractors may or may not own and control copyright in the works they create in that capacity—this determination almost always depends on the terms of the contract between you and the organization that engaged you to perform the work, even though you are the author and may have moral rights. ”

“ Use of the notice may be important because it informs the public that the work is protected by copyright, identifies the copyright owner, and shows the year of first publication. Furthermore, in the event that a work is infringed, if a proper notice of copyright appears on the published copy or copies to which a defendant in a copyright infringement suit had access, then no weight shall be given to such a defendant's interposition of a defense based on innocent infringement in mitigation of actual or statutory damages, except as provided in Title 17, Chap. ”

“ Registration may be made at any time within the life of the copyright. Unlike the law before 1978, when a work has been registered in unpublished form, it is not necessary to make another registration when the work becomes published, although the copyright owner may register the published edition, if desired. ”