A copyright is a collection of rights that automatically vest to someone who creates an original work of authorship – like a literary work, song, movie or software. These rights include the right to reproduce the work, to prepare derivative works, to distribute copies, and to perform and display the work publicly. To understand how these rights can be used or licensed, it’s helpful to analogize them to a bundle of sticks, where each stick represents a one of these rights. The copyright owner has the right to keep each “stick” for themselves, to transfer them individually to one or more people, or to transfer them collectively to one or more people. In short, copyright allows the owner to choose the ways his/her copyrighted works are made available to the public. The basis for copyright protection stems directly from the U.S. Constitution. The Framer’s believed that securing the exclusive rights of authors to their writings for limited periods would “promote the progress of science and useful arts.” The primary objective of copyright is to induce and reward authors, through the provision of property rights, to create new works and to make those works available to the public to enjoy. The theory is that, by granting certain exclusive rights to creators, which allow them to protect their creative works against theft, they receive the benefit of economic rewards and the public receives the benefit of the creative works that might not otherwise be created or disseminated.While copyright law is intended to serve the purpose of enriching the general public through access to creative works, it’s important to understand that it imposes no obligation upon creators to make their copyrighted works available. There are, of course, some limitations on the rights granted to copyright owners. Under certain circumstances, anyone can use a work without getting the copyright owner’s permission or paying the copyright owner to use it.