Transcript COPYRIGHT BASICS: Because knowledge is power James Madison University June 2012 ACRL Scholarly Communication 101

COPYRIGHT BASICS:
Because knowledge is power
James Madison University
June 2012
ACRL Scholarly Communication 101
LEARNING OUTCOMES

At the end of the copyright section participates
will:
Understand how copyright arises and identify types of
material that are likely to be subject to copyright
protection.
 Identify the likely copyright owners of academic works
and have a reasonable awareness of the rights
attendant on such protection.
 Be familiar with rights transfer and retention language
commonly used in publishing contracts.

A CULTURE OF ACCESS
WHO IS COPYRIGHT FOR?
Constitution permits copyright in order to benefit
creators, in balance with the community
Incentive!
For academic works, publishers usually get benefit
(control & profits)
While academic community pays for access)
What’s wrong with this picture?
DYSFUNCTIONAL BECAUSE …

Academic creators don’t get much money

Incentives (rewards) are external to
copyright


Promotion & Tenure, funding, reputation
Academics benefit from access, but
traditional publishing models limits access
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE INTERESTS (?)
Publishers use copyright primarily for corporate
benefit.
They who hold the copyright control access.
Digital environment offer many opportunities to
those who manage their rights with care.
WHAT SHOULD WE DO?

Manage (our own) copyright (and teach
faculty and students to do the same)

Maintain control of the rights we need
and utilize them as needed.

Serve our (authors’) own interests
 If
we give copyright away, we should do it
intentionally
WHAT AUTHORS OWN
WHO IS THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER?
The creator is usually the initial copyright
holder
 If two or more people jointly create a work,
they are joint copyright holders, with equal
rights
 With some exceptions, work created as a
part of a person's employment is a "work
made for hire" and the copyright belongs
to the employer

WHAT IS COPYRIGHT?
Copyright is a bundle of rights:
The right to reproduce the work
 The right to distribute the work
 The right to prepare derivative works
 The right to publicly perform the work
 The right to publicly display the work
 The right to license any of the above to third
parties

HOW DO WE GET COPYRIGHT?

Copyright exists from the moment of
creation, and lasts for the life of the author
plus 70 years

You used to need the “©” (little c in a circle),
and to register your work with the copyright
office, but you don’t anymore
Copyright just happens.
REQUIREMENTS FOR PROTECTION

An original work of authorship

Creativity (just a dash)

Fixed in a tangible medium of expression
WHAT COPYRIGHT PROTECTS
Copyright protects… Copyright doesn’t protect…
 Writing
 Ideas
 Choreography
 Facts
 Music
 Titles
 Visual art
 Data
 Film
 Methods (that’s patent)
 Architectural works
AS RUN THE SANDS OF TIME…

The bundle of copyrights lasts a
long time:
 Life
of the author plus 70 years
 For joint works, 70 years after death
of last author
 For works for hire or anonymous
works, 95 years from publication or
120 years from creation, whichever
expires first
FREE AS AIR – THE PUBLIC DOMAIN
• Works published before 1923
• Works published without
notice prior to 1977
• Works not renewed prior to
1963
• Works of the federal gov’t
• Titles, short phrases & facts
• IDEAS
See http://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm for
more details about copyright term and the public domain
FAIR USE, BUT FOR OPEN SHARING?
Balancing four factors in relation to the intended use to
determine if a fair use claim can be accepted:




The purpose and character of the use, including whether such
use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational
purposes;
The nature of the copyrighted work;
The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to
the copyrighted work as a whole; and
The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of
the copyrighted work.
But for open sharing of works, Fair Use is quite limiting, (even
under normal conditions for classroom and educational uses
it is limiting).
MANAGING OUR RIGHTS
GIVING AWAY COPYRIGHT?!

Copyright can only be transferred (“assigned”)
in writing.

Licensing allows specific rights to be retained:
Authors keep copyright and license other rights (e.g.,
first publication)
 Publishers take copyright and license rights back
(e.g., reproduction, derivatives)


Addenda can be added to publication
agreements to negotiate rights retention
LICENSES AND COPYRIGHT

Licenses are contracts that allow others to
exercise some right that the licensor owns.
A
non-exclusive license can be transferred verbally (but
writing is better);
 May carry conditions and limitations
 It can LOOK like copyright transfer, especially if exclusive.

Copyrights can be unbundled and divided up in
countless ways
BUNDLED VS. UNBUNDLED

Rights publishers traditional want:
 Reproduction,

distribution, derivatives…ALL!!
Rights publishers actually need:
 Right
of first publication…that’s it, really
Specific rights can be managed by licenses
(e.g., Creative Commons) or addenda (e.g.,
SPARC) or negotiation
 Open Access publishers usually do not require
full transfer of copyright

THE SECRETS OF REUSE

By the author
 What reuses are important?
 Distribution
to colleagues, teaching, web access,
conference presentation, republication
 If
specific rights retained, reuse is possible
 If no rights retained, then fair use only

By others
 If published open access, then freely accessible –
and possibly more
 If published under a Creative Commons license,
then within limits defined by the license
 If published traditionally, then fair use only
NEGOTIATION

If you don’t ask, you don’t get
 Even
if you don’t succeed, it is useful to ask
Think about what you need
 Read the agreement
 Consider addenda (and learn from them!)
 Work with your editor or publisher

Know what you want to accomplish!
CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE:
http://creativecommons.org
Excellent example of a license facilitating sharing beyond copyright.
TAKE HOME POINTS (BEFORE EXERCISE)

We all own copyright until we sign it away

Contracts are negotiable, including publishing
agreements

Think ahead to how you might want to use your
work

Experimentation via CC licenses, attaching
addenda, or negotiating isn’t scary and doesn’t
negate peer-review prestige
QUESTIONS & DISCUSSION
(BEFORE THE EXERCISE)
QUESTIONS?
RIGHTS AGREEMENT EXERCISE
PUBLICATION AGREEMENTS

Indicators of author friendly or unfriendly contracts.



Copyright transfer v. “exclusive” or “non-exclusive”
licenses.
What versions of the article can the author do what
with?


The author, hereinafter referred to as “chopped liver”
classroom use, redistribution, website posting, repository
posting, giving talks at conferences with the work
Embargoes (delayed release periods), and conditions?
This work was created by Molly Keener for the 14th ACRL
National Conference, Scholarly Communication 101
workshop, and last updated by Molly Keener and Kevin Smith
on October 20, 2011. Ada Emmett & Kevin Smith made
revisions and added new slides in May 2012.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution
Non-Commercial Share Alike 3.0 United States license:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/.