Copyright law intersects with what we do as educators and researchers in many ways. Questions can arise when using copyright materials in the classroom, online or in research.
What is Copyright?
Copyright (Title 17 of the United States Code) is a federal law which provides exclusive rights for original authors/creators to control the use of their work for a limited period of time.
Although most people would say that the purpose of copyright is to protect copyright holders/authors rights, the purpose of copyright is stated in the act itself.
The Congress shall have Power To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
(United States Constitution, Article I, Section 8)
The law was intended to serve a dual purpose, to provide rights to authors in order to protect their work but also to promote creativity and learning by allowing for others to be inspired to create more original work.
The protection is actually a means of promoting the production of culture by protecting creative expression while at the same time not allowing any one person to have a monopoly on the future creation of creative expression.
What exclusive rights do copyright holders have?
The six exclusive rights contained in the law are as follows:
The right to...
Exclusive rights are divisible and can be inherited, given or contracted away, which means someone can own the copyright without physically owning the tangible work.
According to the U.S. Copyright Office, “copyright protects ‘original works of authorship’ that are fixed in a tangible form of expression.” This means the work must be written or recorded in some form to be protected. There are eight categories of works:
Copyright DOES NOT protect:
The Public Domain refers to works that were created in certain time periods that are no longer protected by copyright. The following works are in the Public Domain:
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