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Copyright: Basics of Copyright

What is Copyright?

Copyright, a form of intellectual property law, protects original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture. Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed.

General Concepts
  • A work created today (or, more specifically, after 1989) is protected under copyright as soon as it’s created and is (generally) protected for the lifetime of the creator, plus 70 years (could be even longer for some works).
  • There is no special symbol (such as the copyright symbol) necessary on the protected work since 1989--it is protected simply because someone created it and wrote it down or recorded it.
  • If more than one person created a work, they might be joint owners of a work.
  • When copyright expires, the work becomes public domain.
  • Ideas can’t be copyrighted, only the tangible expression in a fixed medium of the idea can.  
  • Facts can't be copyrighted, either.
  • You may use any copyrighted material under the “fair use” doctrine, within fair use guidelines.
  • If something looks copyrighted, assume it is.

What is Fair Use?

Fair use is a limitation on someone's ability to assert copyright infringement. In court, it operates as a defense that an individual can assert if sued for infringement.  

Fair use can be found in 17 U.S.C. Section 107 (The Copyright Act).

The preamble to fair use provides that reproduction of copyrighted works may be made for "purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research . . ."

Thus, academic uses may qualify as a fair use. There are a few things to be aware of, though:

  • Fair use determinations should be made on a case-by-case basis (i.e. not every scholarly use of an item is fair use);
  • Fair use is a weighing test and is not limited to the four factors described below (judges may take other factors into account);
  • Fair use is an affirmative defense (in other words, a person can still be sued for copyright violations even if the use is almost certainly a fair one--since fair use is an affirmative defense, the burden is on the person making the copy (the user of the work) to justify the use as a fair use.

Fair Use Tools