Common law copyright is the legal doctrine that grants copyright protection based on common law of various jurisdictions, rather than through protection of statutory law.
In part, it is based on the contention that copyright is a natural right and creators are therefore entitled to the same protections anyone would be in regard to tangible and real property.
The "natural right" aspect of the doctrine was addressed by the courts in the United Kingdom (Donaldson v. Beckett, 1774) and the United States (Wheaton v. Peters, 1834). In both countries, the courts found that copyright is a limited right under statutes and subject to the conditions and terms the legislature sees fit to impose. The decision in the UK did not, however, directly rule on whether copyright was a common-law right.
In the United States, common law copyright also refers to state-level copyrights. These are ordinarily preempted by federal copyright law, but for some categories of works, common law (state) copyright may be available. For instance, in the New York State 2005 case, Capitol Records v. Naxos of America, the court held that pre-1972 sound recordings, which do not receive federal copyrights, may nevertheless receive state common law copyrights,[1] a ruling that was clarified and limited with 2016's Flo & Eddie v. Sirius XM Radio.