Understanding Copyright: What Works Can Be Copyrighted and the Key Requirements To Do So

According to section 1 of the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA 1998), the following types of works can be protected by copyright; literary works, dramatic works, musical works, artistic works, sound recordings, films, broadcasts and the typographical arrangement of published editions (TAPE). Generally, categorising your work into one of these categories is straightforward - a sculpture will be an artistic work, a book will be a literary work and so on. But it should be noted that the lines can get blurred sometimes - for example, a song is a musical work (melody of the song) and a literary work (lyrics of the song). 

So, what requirements need to be met to protect your work?

There are 4 requirements; qualification, idea/expression dichotomy, fixation and originality. 

• Qualification = the author of the work must be a UK national/resident OR the place of first publication of the work must be the UK 

• Idea/expression dichotomy = ideas cannot be protected but expressions can be - i.e., having an idea for the plot of a play  will not be protected but the literary work (script) and dramatic work (the action of preforming it) will be 

• Fixation = the work must be recorded - i.e., writing it down, digitally recording it etc.

• Originality = the definition differs between works but generally the work must reflect the authors own intellectual creation - i.e., reflect the author’s own creative choices 

* The definition of originality for sound recordings, films, broadcasts and TAPEs is, simply, that it has not been copied 

To understand which requirements are needed to protect your work, see the table below: