Copyrights are protections provided by U.S. law to authors of original works of authorship in a fixed medium.
Copyright Office 21 – U.S. Copyright Office.
“Circular 1: Copyright Basics,” U.S. Copyright Office, September 2021, pp. 1, https://copyright.gov/circs/circ01.pdf.
Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States to the authors of “original works of authorship” that are fixed in a tangible form of expression. An original work of authorship is a work that is independently created by a human author and possesses at least some minimal degree of creativity. A work is “fixed” when it is captured (either by or under the authority of an author) in a sufficiently permanent medium such that the work can be perceived, reproduced, or communicated for more than a short time. Copyright protection in the United States exists automatically from the moment the original work of authorship is fixed.1