Intellectual property is a work or invention that is the result of creativity to which one is entitled and can be protected. A copyright is a legal way to protect a writing, for example, if it is published or not. The US Copyright Office designates copyright protection for “…original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed…” (see 17 USC ยง 102 (a)). Essentially, protection has three parts: (1) being a work of authorship, which we explore in more detail in a separate article, (2) being original, and (3) being fixed in a tangible medium of expression.
Original. A work must be original to the author to be protected. Furthermore, the term “original” as used in copyright law simply means (i) that the work was created independently by the author and (ii) that it possesses at least a minimal degree of creativity. Publications Feist v. Rural Telephone Service is an illustrative case from 1991 where the Rural Telephone Service main directory compilation did not merit copyright protection. The test is that an idea is more than “so mechanical or routine that it requires no creativity,” that the idea contains some “creative spark.” The court ruled that the Rural Telephone Service’s directory was nothing more than an alphabetical listing of all subscribers to its service, meaning that no creative expression was involved.
Fixed. The fixed form does not have to be directly perceptible as long as it can be communicated with the aid of a machine or other device. For example, a short story that is printed on paper meets this requirement, while a live performance of the same short story that is not being recorded simultaneously does not. There is another example in a song. A song is considered fixed when it is written on paper, which is the medium in which the song can be perceived, reproduced and communicated. Furthermore, as long as the work can be perceived by a machine, such as the moment the author records it on a cassette tape or compact disc, the song is fixed. Similarly, a computer program is repaired when it is stored on a computer’s hard drive. Also, although bits and bytes are only temporarily fixed through a computer’s random access memory (RAM), many courts have held that a computer program that exists in RAM is fixed for copyright protection purposes. Author.
