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This document lists some frequently asked questions concerning copyright law and provides the answers. The following is a summary of the provided information relevant to my thesis.  In order to use someone’s copyrighted work you must ask permission. If you do not know who owns the work you can either look it up in the U.S. Copyright Office records or pay $150 per hour to have someone look it up for you if it’s part of the pre-1978 records.  If it is post-1978 the records are available online.  Permission must then be obtained from the copyright owner.  It is also “permissible to use limited portions of a work” under the fair use doctrine without obtaining permission from the copyright owner.  The “Copyright Office recommends that permission be obtained” when in doubt, as one can be brought to court to defend fair use which can sometimes be even more costly than buying the rights.  Sometimes a business may refuse to copy something or partake in possible copyright infringements because it views it as a risk. The policy “established by a shop is a business decision and risk assessment that the business is entitled to make, because the business may face liability if they reproduce a work even if they did not know the work was copyrighted.”

The section of this paper that relates to my thesis explains how copyright law has virtually relied on the gatekeeper system until recent years when the internet began to break it down.  It explains that gatekeepers “prevent evasion of the law by blocking the opportunity to buy an infringing product in the first place.”  Since it is almost impossible to enforce copyright law on every individual infringement, especially the small scale ones, gatekeepers become the necessary tool.  Publishers are one example of such gatekeepers. 

This relates strongly to my thesis by helping to explain the importance of gatekeepers. My thesis explores the role of publishers (publishers of plays, specifically) as gatekeepers.  This exploration would not be warranted without first explaining the importance, which is as an additional line of copyright enforcement.