Related Practices

• Intellectual Property, E-Commerce and Technology
• Biotech and Nanotechnology
• Copyrights & Maskwork
• Domain Name Registrations and Disputes
• Licensing & Technology Service Agreements
• Patents & Trade Secrets
• Technology Litigation
• Trademarks & Trade Dress

Practice Team

A growing part of the Intellectual Property, E-Commerce & Technology Practice Group is the area of copyright protection and infringement litigation. Lawyers in this group have represented a number of clients in recent years who have been sued in the Florida federal courts for copyright infringement and related claims, and we expect copyright matters to become a significant part of our practice.

Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U.S. Code) to the authors of "original works of authorship," including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works. Section 106 of the 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to do and to authorize others to do the following:

• Reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords
• Prepare derivative works based upon the work
• Distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending
• Perform the work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works
• Display the copyrighted work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work
• In the case of sound recordings, perform the work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission

Copyright protection exists from the time the work is created in fixed form. The copyright in the work of authorship immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work. Only the author or those deriving their rights through the author can rightfully claim copyright.

It is illegal for anyone to violate any of the rights provided by the copyright law to the owner of copyright. These rights, however, are not unlimited in scope. Sections 107 through 121 of the 1976 Copyright Act establish limitations on these rights. In some cases, these limitations are specified exemptions from copyright liability. One major limitation is the doctrine of "fair use," which is given a statutory basis in section 107 of the 1976 Copyright Act. In other instances, the limitation takes the form of a "compulsory license" under which certain limited uses of copyrighted works are permitted upon payment of specified royalties and compliance with statutory conditions.

If you want to protect your works or believe your copyrights have been violated, contact a member of our team.