Copyright is a form of protection granted by U.S. law to the creators of “original works of authorship” including literary, dramatic, musical, and certain other creative works. It gives the author of the work certain exclusive rights, including the rights to reproduce the work and to distribute, perform and display it publicly. Under current law, authors do not have to register a work or attach a copyright notice in order for copyright protection to apply to the work; the protection exists automatically from the time the work is created in a fixed form (e.g., a text, a sound or video recording, dance notation, a photograph) More at the CUNY Copyright Site.