Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices, Third Edition
- screenplay or a treatment for a motion picture (i.e., a written description of a motion picture that is typically created before the creation of the shooting script). Instead, the term “synopsis” or “treatment” should be used to describe these types of works.
- Sculpture, 3-dimensional sculpture. These terms may be used to describe the authorship in a work of fine art. Likewise, they may be used to describe the authorship in toys, dolls, scale models, and other three-dimensional sculptural works. They also may be used to describe three-dimensional artwork that has been applied to a useful article, provided that the sculpture is physically or conceptually separable from the useful article. For a discussion of the specific practices and procedures for registering a physically or conceptually separable sculpture that has been applied to a useful article, see Chapter 900, Section 924.
- Sound recording. This term may be used to describe a series of sounds that have been recorded in a particular medium, such as a recording of musical sounds that have been captured in a compact disc or mp3 file. Specifically, the term sound recording may be used to describe the creative contribution of an individual who performed the sounds that are fixed in a particular recording. If more than one performance is fixed in the sound recording, the claim must be for joint authorship or a work made for hire. Likewise, the term sound recording may be used to describe the creative contribution of the producer or sound engineer who recorded the sounds. (In the alternative the term production may be used to describe this type of authorship.) A sound recording is separate and distinct from any work that may be embodied in the recording. For example, a song that is captured in a sound recording is a separate work from the recording of that song and a book that is captured in an audiobook is a separate work from the recording of that book. For a discussion of the specific practices and procedures for registering a sound recording, see Chapter 800, Section 803.
- Technical drawing. This term may be used to describe diagrams illustrating scientific or technical information in linear form, such as architectural blueprints or mechanical drawings. For a discussion of the specific practices and procedures for registering technical drawings, see Chapter 900, Section 922.
- Text. This term may be used to describe books, periodicals, manuscripts, stories, poetry, or other nondramatic literary works. It may be used to describe textual material that accompanies a pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work, such as comic strips, greeting cards, maps, commercial prints or labels, or the rules for a game. It also may be used to describe a play, a script, a screenplay, or a treatment for a motion picture, an audiovisual work, or other works of the performing arts.
618.4(D) Examples for Completing the Author Created Field and the Nature of Authorship Space
This Section provides representative examples for completing the Author Created field in the online application, as well as the Nature of Authorship space in the paper application.
- Online application for a novella.
Author Created: text.
Chapter 600 : 118
12/22/2014
