Copyright Intellectual Property Fair Use Public
Domain Teach Act Copyright Clearance Plagiarism
HOW TO FIND:
Internet
Resources
Intellectual Property includes four areas: copyright, patent,
trade mark, and trade secret. This document highlights the first area, copyright.
More specifically, this resource focuses on the academic environment, particularly
for librarians, educators, and students. This document provides basic information
on the concepts of copyright law, avoiding infringement, seeking legal clearance,
and applying the appropriate laws for a variety of media.
Copyright
Copyright is a privilege
and a protection, which the federal government affords authors and artists,
as an incentive to product creative works and expressions. Libraries and nonprofit
educational institutions are granted certain exemptions to copyright laws.
American copyright laws
are inherited from English copyright laws.
The American Bar
Association web site provides detailed information for both the creators
and the information borrowers. Wikipedia is a free online
encyclopedia, which offers extensive commentaries on copyright and other intellectual
property issues. A wiki is a new and innovative technology, which displays
pertinent and new intellectual property changes. Also, the wiki may be updated
from the browser window; therefore, changes and news items are available for
fast publication on the Web.
Fair
Use
The principle of fair use does
not have a set definition, but there are established guidelines to direct
users or borrowers on what and how much of a copyrighted work may be borrowed.
In general, the statute does "state the minimum and the not the maximum
standards..." (Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 102(2001)).
Colleges, major universities,
and educational organizations offer intellectual property information on the
Internet. The websites contain well-documented and comprehensive documents
for their respective learning communities on fair use guidelines. Listed below
are fair use guidelines from several major university websites.
Other higher learning institutions
have developed practical tutorials on fair use; the tutorials are interactive,
user-friendly, and cover a number of media and issues. The tutorial websites are:
Librarians are presented daily with copyright dilemmas. Copyright laws are
evolving and new meanings and applications are continuously surfacing.
Unfortunately, new legislation may affect not only new technological inventions,
as new digital references, databases, and archival issues, but older and
established services, as well.
Laura N. Gasaway defines
a public
domain work as a creative work that is not protected by copyright, which
may be freely used by everyone. The reasons that the work is not protected
include: (1) the term of copyright for the work has expired; (2) the author
failed to satisfy statutory formalities to perfect the copyright; or (3) the
work is a U.S. Government document.
Copyrights are limited
in their duration, but copyrights may be extended. The Cornell University
web site features a copyright
duration chart, which outlines when works fall in to the public domain.
The term, orphan work,
describes any work where the legal copyright holder can not be located. A
brochure from the
Duke University Law School highlights some of problems that potential borrowers
of an orphan work may encounter.
TEACH
Act
With the growing number
of online classes, it became apparent that educators who taught online were
accorded separate and less favorable fair use guidelines than face-to-face
educators. The Technology, Education, and Copyright Harmonization Act of 2002
was enacted to ease the copyright standards for online classes. Florida State
University supplies an explanation and guidelines
in a web site called The TEACH Act of 2002: How the Law Affects Online Instruction.
A comprehensive TEACH Act
tutorial is provided by the North
Carolina State University.
The University of Indiana
includes a
TEACH ACT Checklist as a tool for online educators to measure compliance
when using a variety digital materials in an online course.
Frequently Asked
Questions
The United States government and higher education institutions have compiled
lists of Frequently Asked Questions(FQA). FAQ indexes provide easy access to
questions and answers about common copyright issues.
Obtaining copyright clearance can be confusing and time consuming. The University
of Texas has compiled Getting Permission, which lists websites
that specialize in securing permissions for national and foreign works, as well
as image archives, freelance authors, music performances, play right, new archives,
movies, and more. Also, The
Copyright Clearance Center is a commercial web site, which offers services
to academic institutions to ensure their compliance in copyright matters.
Plagiarism
Students are reminded that plagiarism is a serious infringement. Plagiarism,
according to Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, is " the act of passing of
ideas and words of another as one's own, without crediting the source." When a
student uses the words or ideas of another in a paper or presentation, the
student is required to cite the original work. Also, the student is required to
acknowledge all who have contributed significantly to the paper or course
assignment.
