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Copyright law reserves certain exclusive rights to authors and claimants (owners) of original, creative works "fixed in a tangible medium." These rights include the right to make copies and derivative works, the right to distribute (i.e. sell, lease, license) the work, and the right to publicly perform the work. Ideas themselves, however, no matter how creative or original, are not projectile as such; only their fixed, tangible expression is. The "idea" of two young ones falling in love against the backdrop of their feuding families is not something Shakepeare could have ever reserved to himself, only Romeo and Juliet. Otherwise, where would our Westside Story be? A copyright holder's "exclusive rights" can be lost or compromised, however. For example, once a physical copy of a video cassette or DVD is duly sold to another, the owner of that copy may resell or otherwise dispose of it as he chooses, even re-renting it over and over (which is how Blockbuster and others got their start, and why amendments were needed to the Copyright Act for phono-records and software).
A copyright "attaches" the moment an idea is fixed in its expression. Scribble on a piece of paper and you have a copyrighted work. In order to protect your work against unauthorized copying, dissemination or display (i.e., infringement), it will be vastly preferable to have registered your work in any event, where possible, if litigation is required or intended. A holder of a copyright registration, particularly where the work is registered prior to its publication in any way, retains for himself a panoply of rights not otherwise available without registering, including the right to an award of attorneys' fees.
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