A copyright is a legal instrument that protects the holder’s interest in an original work of authorship.

The holder of a copyright may exclude others from reproducing the work, preparing a derivative work, distributing the work, or putting the work on public display, with some exceptions.

Copyright protection is available for a wide variety of original works, including movies, songs, and stories, but also including digital and commercial works such as blueprints, computer code, models, and UI’s.

Under US law, a copyright is automatically created when an author fixes their work in a tangible medium. A work is considered fixed as long as it is sufficiently permanent or stable to permit it to be perceived, reproduced, or communicated. Accordingly, most authors enjoy some copyright protection automatically, even if the copyright is unregistered.
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However, unregistered copyrights only provide limited rights and protections. For instance, an unregistered copyright may only provide limited protection in the specific geographic region it has been used. Further, it will likely be difficult to enforce unregistered copyrights, since only registered copyrights may be litigated.

A work is fixed in a tangible medium if it exists in some physical form for at least some period of time, no matter how brief. This can include writing digital data in a computer’s storage, scrawling notes on the back of a napkin, or publishing a hardcover novel.
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A work is original as long as it is the author’s own creation. An original work can often be inspired by, or similar to, existing works as long as the author did not simply copy the work from another source.
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Finally, a work must exhibit some modicum of creativity. Most works will satisfy this requirement. While there is no explicit standard for the minimum amount of creativity required to receive copyright protection, an example of insufficient creativity would be an alphanumerical listing of phone numbers/owners as would be found in a phone book.