Page:H.R. Rep. No. 94-1476 (1976) Page 002.djvu



Sec. 113. Scope of exclusive rights in pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works. 114. Scope of exclusive rights in sound recordings. 115. Scope of exclusive rights in nondramatic musical works: Compulsory license for making and distributing phonorecords. 116. Scope of exclusive rights in nondramatic musical works: Public performances by means of coin-operated phonorecord players. 117. Scope of exclusive rights: Use in conjunction with computers and similar information systems 118. Scope of exclusive rights: Use of certain works in connection with noncommercial broadcasting.

§ 101. Definitions

As used in this title, the following terms and their variant forms mean the following:


 * An “anonymous work” is a work on the copies or phonorecords of which no natural person is identified as author.


 * “Audiovisual works” are works that consist of a series of related images which are intrinsically intended to be shown by the use of machines or devices such as projectors, viewers, or electronic equipment, together with accompanying sounds, if any, regardless of the nature of the material objects, such as films or tapes, in which the works are embodied.


 * The “best edition” of a work is the edition, published in the United States at any time before the date of deposit, that the Library of Congress determines to be most suitable for its purposes.


 * A person’s “children” are that person’s immediate off-spring, whether legitimate or not, and any children legally adopted by that person.


 * A “collective work” is a work, such as a periodical issue, anthology, or encyclopedia, in which a number of contributions, constituting separate and independent works in themselves, are assembled into a collective whole.


 * A “compilation” is a work formed by the collection and assembling of pre-existing materials or of data that are selected, coordinated, or arranged in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship. The term “compilation” includes collective works.


 * “Copies” are material objects, other than phonorecords, in which a work is fixed by any method now known or later developed, and from which the work can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. The term “copies” includes the material object, other than a phonorecord, in which the work is first fixed.


 * “Copyright owner”, with respect to any one of the exclusive rights comprised in a copyright, refers to the owner of that particular right.


 * A work is “created” when it is fixed in a copy or phonorecord for the first time; where a work is prepared over a period of time, the portion of it that has been fixed at any particular time constitutes the work as of that time, and where the work has been prepared in different versions, each version constitutes a separate work.


 * A “derivative work” is a work based upon one or more pre-existing works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a “derivative work”.


 * A “device”, “machine”, or “process” is one now known or later developed.


 * To “display” a work means to show a copy of it, either directly or by means of film, slide, television image, or any other device or process or, in the case of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to show individual images nonsequentially.


 * A work is “fixed” in a tangible medium of expression when its embodiment in a copy or phonorecord, by or under the authority of the author, is sufficiently permanent or stable to permit it to be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated for a period of more than transitory duration. A work consisting of sounds, images, or both, that are being transmitted, is “fixed” for purposes of this title if a fixation of the work is being made simultaneously with its transmission.


 * The terms “including” and “such as” are illustrative and not limitative.


 * A “joint work” is a work prepared by two or more authors with the intention that their contributions be merged into inseparable or interdependent parts of a unitary whole.