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Copyright

When an artist creates a drawing, painting, sculpture, animation or any of the myriad of other forms a visual communication may take, it is the tangible expression of an idea. Artwork is intellectual property in the same way that words are. Intellectual property is protected by a body of copyright law reserving to the creator certain rights and privileges designed to encourage further creativity by rewarding that creator financially as long as the creator makes his or her creation available to society. In this manner, through self interest, individuals and groups are encouraged to create new ideas, art, inventions and so on that, in turn, benefit society.

Medical illustrators are in the business of creation and in order to pursue their careers must be aware of the copyright laws governing the publication of their work and of their rights and responsibilities under these laws.

The publication AMI Copyright for Natural Science Illustrators is available to members in the Member Community. The following articles can be found in this document.

  • A Brief History of U.S. Copyright Law
  • Definitions of Patents and Trademarks
  • Overview of U.S. Copyright Law As It Pertains to the Visual Artist
  • Copyright Law and the New Technologies
  • Contracts
  • Negotiating Work-Made-for-Hire Contracts
  • Joint Authorship
  • Institutional Copyright and Publication Policies
  • Copyright and Medical Book Publishing
  • Copyright in the Illustrator-Owned Small Business
  • Fair Use in Copyright
  • Aspects of International Copyright Law
  • About the Contributing Authors

Copyright Registration


The rights that the artist, as the creator, possesses upon creation of a piece of work and that are confirmed by the registration of the copyright with the Copyright Office, are stated by the law as follows: "The owner of a copyright has the exclusive rights to reproduce the work, sell and distribute the work, prepare derivative works, [and] perform the work publicly." The term of copyright is the life of the owner plus seventy years. The term of institutional copyright and copyright of works made for hire is ninety-five years from publication or one hundred years from creation, whichever is shorter.

Registering copyright is a fairly simple matter, and is clearly explained on the Copyright Office website http://www.copyright.gov. Go to the Copyright Office website, and click on How To Register A Work. Three methods of filing are described there with links to the appropriate forms and information about deposits and current filing fees. The three ways to register your copyright are:

1. Electronic Copyright Office (eCO) filing is the cheapest method, and allows you to submit the form and deposit requirements electronically with options for electronic payment.

2. Fill-in Form CO (uses barcode technology and replaces Forms TX, VA, PA, SE, and SR). You will fill out the bar-coded form online, then print hard copies to send by mail, with your check and deposit requirements. Form CO may be used for unpublished works, or for published works in a single publication. As of this writing, Form CO cannot be used for Group Registrations. Group Registration Forms may be found by clicking the Forms tab on the Homepage.

3. Requesting the correct paper forms (TX, VA, PA, SE, or SR) and filling them in manually. Please note that these Forms are being phased out, and are no longer available for printing from the Copyright Office website. You may request that they be sent to you by mail by filling out an order-form on the website.

Selected paper forms are also available in the Member Community Library.

Before using Electronic Registration the first time, read the eCO Tips, eCO FAQ, and review the Powerpoint Tutorial on the Copyright Website.

Collections of work


A collection of unpublished work may be registered electronically (eCO) under a single title if the materials are presented in an orderly form, bear a single collective title, are by the same person as the one claiming the copyright or, if by different people, at least one person has contributed copyrightable material to each work in the collection. There is no limit to the number of works in a given group.

In cases where a work, or several works, have been published in several periodicals during a twelve-month period, they may be group-registered if each contribution had its own copyright notice in the owner's name. Group registration must be completed manually and requires form GR/CP (group registration/collected papers) printed from the Copyright Website.

Magazines, newspapers, and anthologies (including floppy disks, CD's and internet/world wide web publications), are considered to be collective works, and the law provides that "the copyright of each contribution is separate from the copyright of the entire collective work." Unless the artist agrees in writing otherwise, he or she usually owns the copyright of the artwork and sells the owner of the collective work only such rights as are agreeable to both parties.

Please also see Advocacy issues related to copyright.