Typically, a work must meet minimal standards of originality in
order to qualify for a copyright, and the copyright expires after a set
period of time if not extended. Different countries impose different
tests, although generally the requirements are low; in the United
Kingdom there has to be some 'skill, originality and work' which has
gone into it. However, even fairly trivial amounts of these qualities
are sufficient for determining whether a particular act of copying
constitutes an infringement of the author's original expression.
In
the United States, copyright has relatively recently been made
automatic, which has had the effect of making it more like a property
right. Thus, as with property, a copyright need not be granted or
obtained through official registration with the government. Once such
an expression is secured in a fixed medium (such as a drawing, sheet
music, a videotape or a letter), the copyright holder is prepared to
enforce his or her exclusive rights. However, while a copyright need
not be officially registered for the author to begin excercising his
exclusive rights, registration of works does have its benefits: serving
as prima facie evidence of a valid copyright and enabling the copyright
holder to seek statutory damages and attorney's fees (whereas
registering after an infringement only enables one to receive actual
damages and profits). The original owner of the copyright may be the
employer of the actual author rather than the author himself if the
work is a "work for hire". Again, this principle is widespread; in
English law the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 provides that
where a work in which copyright subsists is made by an employee in the
course of that employment, the copyright is automatically assigned to
the employer.
Copyrights are generally enforced by
the owner in a civil law court, but there are also criminal
infringement statutes. Criminal sanctions are generally aimed at
serious counterfeiting activity, but may now become more commonplace as
the copyright collectives like the RIAA are more and more targeting the
file sharing home Internet user. Thus far however, these cases have
usually been settled outside of court, with demands of payment of
several thousand dollars accompanied by nothing more than a threat to
sue the file sharer, thus such cases do not even make it to civil law
courts in reality.