Copyright

U.S. copyright law governs the use, reproduction, distribution, display, and performance of all copyrighted materials, regardless of nature, genre, or format (and almost all works, once fixed in a tangible medium, have copyright protection, whether published or unpublished, and whether copyright protection is explicitly claimed or not). Only the copyright holder has the right to reproduce a work, distribute copies of it, make derivative works from it, and perform or display the work publicly, UNLESS the holder forfeits one or more of these rights by contractual agreement (such as a license), OR another’s use of the work is determined to be “fair” under certain limitations to those exclusive rights.

The United States Copyright Office is the best resource to locate the most current information about copyright.