Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 106 of the U.S. Code grants authors the exclusive rights to:

• reproduce
• distribute
• adapt
• publicly perform
• publicly display

​the copyrighted work. Copyright protection is afforded to these exclusive rights the moment the copyrighted work has been “fixed in a tangible medium,” such as when a written work has been saved on a computer's hard drive or printed.

Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 106a of the U.S. Code, (a.k.a Visual Artists Rights, passed in 1990 under the Visual Artists Rights Act), grant visual artists additional rights to proper attribution and preserving the integrity of an artistic work from distortion, mutilation, or modification which would be prejudicial to his or her reputation.