Valentine’s Day can be a time for romance, chocolates, and . . . copyright law? That’s right! If you pour your heart into a sincere love letter, a romantic poem, a beautiful painting, or even a heartfelt social media post, copyright laws are automatically involved. Who actually owns those expressions of love? The creator, the person they are intended to impress, or someone else?

This Valentine’s Day week I’m talking about the intellectual property of love, but what I’m saying applies year-round.

The good news is that under U.S. copyright law, usually the person who creates an original work automatically owns the copyright. That includes written content like love letters, emails, poetry, and even your romantic texts—assuming they’re original enough to be protected.

But copyright law only protects the specific expression of an idea, not the idea itself, and only if it’s sufficiently creative. So, if your love letter says, “Roses are red, violets are blue, I love you,”—sorry, that’s so common it lacks the creativity to be protected by copyright!

Can Your Boss Own Your Love Poem?

🖤 If you write a love letter at work, on company time, using company resources, it could technically belong to your employer. This is because of a legal concept called “work made for hire.” Now, would a company really claim ownership of your love letter? Probably not. To do so, writing a love letter would have to be part of your job duties. So, if you’re employed as a professional greeting card writer, this would matter.

Check out Circular 30 at copyright.gov for more information on works made for hire. https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ30.pdf

Baby Please Don’t Infringe

❤ Your copyright rights to your heartfelt tangible expression belong to you at the moment of creation, but what happens when you give it to your sweetie? Well, break out the candy heart that says “Be Mine.”

If you make a sculpture of a flower and give it to your beloved, they own that particular sculpture and can treasure it or break your heart by putting it on eBay, but you are still the owner of the copyright to the sculpture. That means your sweetheart can’t sell or give away mass reproductions of the sculpture without your consent, just like they couldn’t print and sell copies of a poem you wrote for them.

That’s true for most things you could make and give as a Valentine’s gift. Now, if your sweetheart has asked you to make something, unless it fits one of the narrow categories under commissioned works for hire, you still own the copyright.

Even if you share your expression in public, like posting your poem in a Facebook post, you still own the copyright. You may have given the platform a non-exclusive right to use it for whatever their terms of service say they can use the things you post for, but you’re still the owner. That means if anyone takes your words or art and tries to pass them off as theirs or, worse, tries to make money off of them, that’s a violation of copyright law, and you can take steps to stop them.

So, if you’re writing love letters this Valentine’s Day, remember—you may be giving your heart to your Shmoopy, but your words remain yours! ❤️