This chapter seeks to define the term ‘authorial work’ as used by European legal officials, and the corresponding terms (‘original literary work’, ‘original dramatic work’, ‘original musical work’, and ‘original artistic work’) of UK copyright law. To that end, it considers the nature of the objects treated expressly or otherwise by the legislature and courts as authorial works and original literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic (LDMA) works respectively, in the light also of the legal principles of copyright entitlement. In its conclusion, the questions identified in Chapter 3 concerning the categories and essential properties of each subject matter, the method of their individuation, and the relationship between and method of establishing their and their tokens’ existence are answered. To this end, regard is had to other aspects of the law of copyright, including the UK requirement for fixation and the EU and UK tests for copyright infringement.
