News: Copyright

This Copyright Advocacy Week, it's time to get all of your copyright questions answered! Join us for a special DG Copyright Registration webinar on April 25, and sign up to participate in our one-on-one copyright clinics on April 27.     Copyright Registration 101: Learn How to Register Your Work with the U.S. Copyright Office!   Tuesday, April 25   ADT: 3pm...

UPDATE: Decisions are made by those who show up, so the Dramatists Guild congratulates the Cardinal High School community of Middlefield, Ohio for raising a fuss over the cancellation of their school’s planned production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, we applaud the authors for agreeing to change a few “damns” to “darns,” and we are grateful to the school board for their flexibility in reconsidering their position in response to these efforts. Most of all, we...

January 1, 2023 was Public Domain Day, the day each year when copyrights expire and new works enter the public domain. The “Progress Clause” of the U.S. Constitution established the legal basis for federal copyright law, and it did so in order to encourage the progress of our society, to incentivize the creation of new works that would eventually enrich the public ​domain and be accessible to everyone. So each work entering the public domain is an example of...

The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), which represents 59 education, publishing, religious, and arts organizations, has joined the Dramatists Legal Defense Fund and PEN America to call attention to the cancellation of plays at two universities following protests over their content. The groups...

Recently, the Copyright Claims Board (“CCB”) made a new resource available that may be beneficial to any playwrights, composers, lyricists, or librettists who are looking to bring copyright claims before the CCB. This new resource is a directory of both clinics and organizations who work with law students to represent parties in a dispute before the CCB. It also includes a list of organizations that provide a range of pro bono assistance. While having legal representation is...

Your work cannot be performed without your permission. And it is never okay for someone to change your words, lyrics, or notes, without your approval.  This rule applies whether the desired alteration is a significant change to the text, such as rearranging scenes, adding lines, cutting an entire monologue, or removing an explicit word. It also applies to changing the setting or casting requirements. Casting requirements and settings are a part of an author’s work; if any defining...

Back in April, a Guild member contacted the BA HelpDesk to alert us to what appeared to be pirated libretti and scripts (many of which were written by DG members) that were being sold on eBay by a highly rated seller. The Guild's Business Affairs team investigated the matter; it was determined that many (if not all) of these scripts and libretti were likely being sold without the author's permission,  potentially infringing upon the...

If you have a claim under copyright law, you may want to consider filing it with the Copyright Claims Board rather than in federal court. The Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement (CASE) Act of 2020 is a recent federal law that established the Copyright Claims Board (“CCB”). The CCB is a voluntary arbitration procedure within the Copyright Office that offers copyright owners an alternative to bringing a claim in federal court.  Before the establishment of the CCB...

Discover how to bring your copyright claims to the new Copyright Claims Board, established by The CASE Act!  Wednesday, May 18 Atlantic Time: 2pm Eastern Time: 1pm Central Time: 12pm Mountain Time: 11am Pacific Time: 10am In 2020, Congress passed the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act, otherwise known as the CASE Act. It established a small claims court-type tribunal within the U.S. Copyright Office - known...

Join DG Copyright Management’s Deborah Murad and chief archivist and head of the...

The Copyright Advocacy Committee is gearing up for Copyright Awareness Week 2022, which kicks off on Monday, April 25. What is Copyright? Copyright is to writers what patents are to inventors. When you create original written material, whether it’s a play, musical, libretto, lyric, or song, you automatically own that copyright. Your work is protected by your copyright, which is what gives you the ability to negotiate...

What Happens if I Make a Mistake When Registering My Copyright? On February 24th, the Supreme Court issued a decision in the Unicolors v. H&M case which will help allay one of the fears many of our members have when submitting an application for copyright registration: making a mistake! For a little background, Unicolors sued H&M for copyright infringement. H&M sought to invalidate Unicolors’ copyright...