Compendium of U.S. Copyright Practices, 3rd Edition

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802.5 (C) Human Authorship

802.5 (C) Human Authorship


To be copyrightable, musical works, like all works of authorship, must be of human origin. A musical work created by solely by an animal would not be registrable, such as a bird song or whale song. Likewise, music generated entirely by a mechanical or an automated process is not copyrightable. For example, the automated transposition of a musical work from one key to another is not registrable. Nor could a musical composition created solely by a computer algorithm be registered.


For more information on works created by non-human authors and mechanical processes, see Chapter 300, Section 306.

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