Your Cat Video Copyright Conundrum

At the beginning of every new year in America, a tsunami of copyrights expire, leading to a great rummaging through once-protected content. Naturally, that’s the case this year—but it’s also the 132nd anniversary of the first film known to have been registered with the U.S. Copyright Office back on Jan. 9, 1894.

The application for this seminal copyright was filed by William K. L. Dickson, an assistant of Thomas Edison, for a five-second film entitled Fred Ott’s Sneeze. The action consists of an Edison employee, Ott, sneezing. Credit for the film went to Dickson as its producer and director (clout chaser) and to its titular star, Ott, who would later appear in the film’s lesser-known follow-up Fred Ott Holding a Bird.

The fact that Dickson obtained a copyright for the film is significant not because the sneeze itself was remarkable, but because the paperwork was. In filing that claim, Dickson helped establish cinema—such as it was—as defensible intellectual property, subject to the same…