The law carves out a set of exceptions to owner rights that allow the public to use works while they are under copyright protection. These are the exceptions:
Title 17 Section 106 U.S. Copyright Law gives authors the following set of rights for a time-limited duration
§ 106 . Exclusive rights in copyrighted works38
Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
Minimally Creative
Original
Fixed in a tangible medium
© Notice & registration was dropped for works published after
March 1, 1989 – they receive automatic copyright protection
(a) Copyright protection subsists, in accordance with this title, in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. Works of authorship include the following categories:
(1) literary works;
(2) musical works, including any accompanying words;
(3) dramatic works, including any accompanying music;
(4) pantomimes and choreographic works;
(5) pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works;
(6) motion pictures and other audiovisual works;
(7) sound recordings; and
(8) architectural works.
Copyright law does not protect s such as facts, ideas, raw data. Section 102 of the Copyright Law provides a detailed list of things that copyright does not protect:
§ 102 (b)
In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.