Does Copyright Law Protect Interviews?
Interviews are used for countless different types of written publication, including books, newspapers and magazines. Authors use interviews with specialists and experts to further their own agendas or to prove or disprove an assertion, and interviews are used commonly enough to have been questioned about copyright law. Can copyright laws protect an interview? According to federal copyright law, “original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression” are considered protected. This means that a written work must satisfy two specific qualities in order to be protected under federal law. First it must be created in fixed form, which means that it must be written down so that it can be distributed or reproduced physically. Second, it must also be an original work, meaning that it cannot have been taken from another work or document. In the case of an interview, most are original. The interviewee is asked questions by the interviewer, and gives answers based on his or her k
