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What You Need to Know About Copyright Ownership and Enforcement

2 min read

You own a copyright, but you aren’t sure what rights you have against alleged infringers. Here’s an overview of your rights as the copyright owner and what constitutes infringement of those rights.

Who owns a copyright?

A copyright is owned by the person who first puts the expression into a tangible medium of expression, generally the author of a work. One exception to the author-ownership rule is a work-for-hire, which is a work created by an employee within the scope of his/her employment or made by an independent contractor who signs a written agreement that the work is “made for hire.”

The other exception is for collective works, where each author has a copyright only to the material they contributed. The editor of a collective work does not have a copyright in any of the discrete works, but does have a copyright in the organization of the collection.

What rights do I have as the owner of a copyright?

  • You can prevent others from copying your work without your permission. To prevail against an alleged infringer, you must show both copying and a substantial similarity of expression between the two works.
  • You may reincorporate or recast your work in subsequent works, for example, a movie made from a book.
  • You can distribute your work to the public. However, once a consumer buys a copy of a product, they can alter or resell that copy.
  • No one may publicly perform or display your work without your permission.
  • You may assign your rights to another party, and you may terminate an assignment 35 to 40 years after assigning your rights.

What constitutes copyright infringement?

Infringement occurs when another party violates any of the author’s exclusive rights without permission. For the most common violation—the reproduction right—the author needs to show both 1) copying by the alleged infringer or substantial similarity, and 2) access to the original. 

Learn more about our approach to trademark and copyright law.

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