Whats a “derivative work”?
Congress revised the federal copyright statute in 1976 to provide copyright owners with statutory protection for derivative works. A derivative work can take the form of “any . . . work [that] may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represents an original work of authorship, is a ‘derivative work.'” (emphasis added) 17 U.S.C. ยง 101 (1994). In short, a derivative work is a whole work based on one or more other whole works. Derivative works include, but are not limited to, translations, musical arrangements, fictionalizations, motion-picture versions, etc. For example, if a Danielle Steele book gets turned into a movie, that movie is a derivative work. Danielle Steele can stop someone from making the movie without her permission. A more complicated question arises when the second creator uses only part of the original work or substantially transforms it in some way. There are ma
