What rights do copyright owners have?
As mentioned above, copyright owners have the exclusive rights to reproduce, distribute, perform or display their works and also to prepare derivative works. These rights, however, only extend to the protected expression (protected expression refers to expression that is original and fixed, as mentioned above). So a well-developed original character, like Scarlett O’Hara, is copyright protected, but a common story line, boy meets girl, is not. For derivative works, protection only extends to new material. For example, imagine that a screenwriter creates a new adventure involving the Zeus, the Greek mythological god. The copyright of this movie might extend to the new plot and any new characters introduced (including new features of Zeus) but Zeus, as ancient mythology, is in the public domain and the screenwriter or her assignee cannot prevent another author from also using Zeus.
