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About GTR's Copyrights

Answer: The purpose of copyright law is to encourage creative work by granting a temporary monopoly in an author's original creations. This monopoly takes the form of six rights in areas where the author retains exclusive control. These rights are:

(1) the right of reproduction (i.e., copying),
(2) the right to create derivative works,
(3) the right to distribution,
(4) the right to performance,
(5) the right to display, and
(6) the digital transmission performance right.

The law of copyright protects the first two rights in both private and public contexts, whereas an author can only restrict the last four rights in the public sphere. Claims of infringement must show that the defendant exercised one of these rights.

Question: What defenses are there to copyright infringement?

Answer: The primary defense to copyright infringement is "fair use." 17 U.S.C. §107. The fair use doctrine allows the reproduction and use of work, notwithstanding the rights of the author (17 U.S.C. §§ 106 and 106A), for limited purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use may be described as the privilege to use the copyrighted material in a reasonable manner without the owner's consent. In deciding whether a copier's actions were fair, judges will consider

1. the purpose and character of the copying (certain types of educational copying is allowed)
2. the nature of the original (originals made for commercial reasons are less protected from copying than their purely artistic counterparts)
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion copied (one may not copy the "heart" of a work without the author's permission); and
4. the effect that such copying may have on the market for the original (copying may be permitted if it is unlikely to cause economic harm the original author).