What does ‘tangible’ mean in copyright law?

Copyright law revolves around the understanding of original works that are “fixed in any tangible meaning of expression”. Without this, copyright can’t exist, but how does it work when many works are created online?

It’s simple enough to understand “tangible” when discussing physical items like books and DVDs, but more complicated when considering blogs, social media content and streaming.

The internet ages

Most content consumed in 2017 isn’t physically present. As the dictionary definition of the word ‘tangible’ is “capable of being perceived, especially by the sense of touch”, this seems to present a complication for copyright law. However, it’s actually the legal definition that counts.

Legal definition of ‘tangible’

Copyright law states that a work must be ‘fixed’ in a tangible medium of expression. To meet this requirement, various components must be in place:

1. Author authority:

The recording must be done by the author, or with the permission of the author. If someone records a concert with no author permission, then is not fixed.

2. Permanence:

The work must be saved in a permanent way so it be communicated at a later date. If the original work only exists in the moment in time that it is transmitted or communicated, then it isn’t fixed.

3. May be fixed while being transmitted:

If the work is fixed while it’s being transmitted, for example, recording a live TV piece while it goes out on air, it does count as being fixed in law.

The element of permanence

This is the key element of defining a work as ‘tangible’. Whether you can touch the copyrighted work or not, if it is permanently stored in a medium that can be copied, accessed or transmitted, then it’s considered to be fixed into a tangible medium.

This allows a law that was originally written for books and physical forms of music, works for internet created work. Saving a work to a hard drive, whether as part of the cloud or your own. Just because something isn’t physically able to be touched, doesn’t mean it’s not covered by copyright law.

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