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ARTICLE · 03 JUNE 2021

Copyrights: Protect Yourself And Respect Others

Panitch Schwarze Belisario & Nadel
Explore more from Panitch Schwarze Belisario & Nadel

Organizations also need to protect and police their own original works.

United StatesIntellectual Property
Bridget H. Labutta
Bridget H. Labutta
Dennis J. Butler
Dennis J. Butler

Copyright is a dangerous legal minefield for organizations, particularly with so many copyrighted works readily available for employees to unthinkingly cut, paste and use improperly for company marketing purposes. Organizations need to guard against employees' naïve use of copyrighted photographs, songs, software and other works – a use that can create significant liability. Organizations also need to protect and police their own original works.

What is Copyright?

Copyright is a powerful intellectual property protection tool grounded in the U.S. Constitution that protects original works of authorship. An author owns a copyright in any original work that they create and "fix in a tangible medium." In other words, there is no copyright in an idea, but the physical expression of the idea is protected by copyright; those physical expressions include photographs, songs, lyrics, performances, videos, paintings, books, articles, scripts, musical compositions and other

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