Page:The librarian's copyright companion, by James S. Heller, Paul Hellyer, Benjamin J. Keele, 2012.djvu/22

6 Because procedures or methods of operation are not subject to copyright protection, something like a simple recipe cannot be copyrighted. A Julia Child cookbook that includes recipes, descriptive text, and illustrations (and presumably many calories), however, is copyrightable. If you doubt whether a computer program is an unprotected method of operation or instead protected expression, remove the doubt: Computer programs may be protected by copyright.

Copyright is available only for works “fixed in a tangible medium of expression.” Fixation occurs when the embodiment of the work “is sufficiently permanent or stable to permit it to be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated for a period of more than transitory duration.” Fixation is easily accomplished. The legislative history to the 1976 Act notes the breadth of Congress’s intent:

In other words, text, images, and graphics—essentially anything we can see in print, on a television screen, on an iPad, or in some other medium—are sufficiently “fixed” to be copyrighted.

A helpful guide from the U.S. Copyright Office lists several categories of works generally not eligible for federal copyright protection for the reasons outlined above:
 * Titles, names, short phrases, and slogans; familiar symbols or designs; mere variations of typographic ornamentation, lettering, or coloring; mere listings of ingredients or contents;
 * Ideas, procedures, methods, systems, processes, concepts, principles, discoveries, or devices, as distinguished from a description, explanation, or illustration; and