A:
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Copyright is a form of protection provided to the authors of “original works
of authorship” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain
other intellectual works, both published and unpublished. The 1976 Copyright Act
generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to reproduce the
copyrighted work, to prepare derivative works, to distribute copies or
phonorecords of the copyrighted work, to perform the copyrighted work publicly,
or to display the copyrighted work publicly.
The copyright protects the form of expression rather than the subject matter
of the writing. For example, a description of a machine could be copyrighted,
but this would only prevent others from copying the description; it would not
prevent others from writing a description of their own or from making and using
the machine. Copyrights are registered by the Copyright Office of the Library of
Congress.
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