American copyright law distinguishes two basic concepts: "idea" and "implementation", but the boundary between these two concepts is not very clear. The paper describing the industrial process is protected by copyright, and no one may copy the paper without the author's permission, but the industrial process itself is not protected by copyright and can be protected by patent. Another author can describe the same industrial process in his own language without infringing the copyright of the original author. As for whether the characters in stories, novels and movies are protected by copyright, different courts have different opinions. The copyright law of 1976 stipulates that:
The copyright of original works absolutely does not involve any idea, procedure, process, system, operation technology, plan, principle or discovery, no matter how the original works describe, explain, explain or express these ideas.
Facts are regarded as synonyms of "idea" and "discovery". However, article 103 of the Copyright Law allows the creativity of selection and arrangement embodied in "editing" to be protected. But this protection is limited to choice and arrangement, not the fact itself, and can be copied at will. The Supreme Court of the United States also clearly stipulated in a judgment that editors must be creative to be protected, so the telephone book is not protected. No matter how much work it takes to edit the phone book, its editors don't need creative work, so they are not protected.
Sometimes it is not clear who is the author of the work. For example, a company hires someone to write a work. In this case, the court ruled that the company, not the employees, is the author and also owns the copyright.
The author can sell, transfer or authorize copyright. For example, the author can authorize foreign publishers to translate his books. American copyright also allows the author (or his successor) to recover his copyright within 35 to 40 years after the transfer or 56 to 6 1 year after the copyright takes effect. But the author and his heirs can't force this copyright back.
In the United States, the United States Copyright Office, which belongs to the Library of Congress, manages copyright issues.
Section 105 of Chapter 17 of the United States Code stipulates:
The copyright stipulated in this article does not apply to any works of the U.S. government, but it does not prohibit the U.S. government from obtaining and holding the transferred copyright through authorization or purchase or other means.
The purpose of this article is to bring all the work of the American government into the public domain. All works created by American government employees while performing their work obligations fall into this category.
1988 the United States joined the Berne convention for the protection of literature and works of art, which came into effect in the United States on 1 March, 9891. The United States has also signed a trade agreement related to intellectual property rights, which in itself requires compliance with the Berne Convention. In order to meet this agreement, copyright protection has been extended to buildings. Due to the strong fair use provisions in American copyright law, some scholars doubt whether American law fully meets the requirements of Berne Convention and trade agreements related to intellectual property rights.