Copyright: what is it?
Copyright means quite literally the �right to copy.� In old English common law, it referred to the exclusive right of the author, which expired as soon as he, or anyone else, actually made a copy or published his work. After that, the author�s work entered the public domain, where everyone had a right to copy it. As early as 1720 in England and 1790 in the new United States, statutes were enacted making copyright more durable, so that it survived publication for at least a limited period. (In the linked sidebar is a more detailed history of copyright and the rise of theatre licensing organizations.) Modern statutes have defined copyright as a bundle of rights belonging exclusively to the author of a work. This bundle includes the rights to publish, to copy and distribute, to adapt, to display, and to perform the work. As intellectual property, any of these rights may be assigned or sold by the author, or by someone licensed to act as the author�s agent, to another person or organization. U.S. and international law have established some serious consequences for assuming any of these rights without permission from the current owner of the right, except where an exemption, such as educational fair use (see the �fair use� sidebar), has been allowed by statute.
Together with contract law � which covers the buying, selling, assignment, and licensing of intellectual property rights, as well as the same transactions for other goods and services used in production � copyright law is the basis for the legal aspects of what is defined as show business.
One of the problems with becoming informed about copyright is that there seems to be a great deal of misinformation about how plays and musicals get licensed for production. The most fundamental thing you need to know and remember is this: unless a producer chooses a play in the public domain or is the author, there will have to be a licensing agreement with the author, the author�s personal agent, or a royalty house/licensing agency (which may or may not be a play publisher) acting on behalf of the author. If you have a �reading edition� from a book publisher rather than an acting edition, the copyright notice page should have contact information for at least the author�s personal agent and perhaps the licensing agency that handles amateur rights. An online search for the play�s title (and possibly author) and the phrase �produced by special arrangement with� may also turn up the needed information in very little time.
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This page last updated on Saturday, May 10, 2008