Copyright

Copyright is the system that protects works meeting a low standard for creativity in a tangible medium. It can be complex and is frequently misunderstood. Some basic, key facts to know about copyright are:

• Copyright is a legal right intended to “to promote the progress of science and use  ful arts.”
• Copyright can vary from country to country.
  • When reusing works from other countries, you should check their copyright laws. This guide will focus on copyright in the US.
• In the US, copyright applies automatically when a work is fixed in a tangible form. Registration is not required.
  • For example, if you take notes in class or a lecture or start drafting an OER, you own the copyright to those notes/drafts.
  • You should always assume a work is protected by copyright even when it doesn’t include a copyright symbol.
• Copyright protections generally last the life of the creator plus 70 years.
• Copyright provides the creator a bundle of rights, specifically the rights to:
  • Reproduce
  • Publish and Distribute
  • Create Derivatives
  • Publicly Display
  • Perform
  • Authorize others to exercise these rights

Open licenses

For some creators, the length of copyright protections and the restrictions on use were too strict. They believed that the current standards don’t engender further creation, one of the goals underpinning the copyright system. Thus, the created licenses within the copyright system to give some of these reuse rights back to the public. These types of licenses are called open licenses.

An open license is a way for creators to proactively and clearly communicate to the public about how their copyrighted material can and cannot be used. Open licensing options fill the gap between “all rights reserved” copyright (which protects everything from storing copies of a work to modifying the work) and the public domain (no copyright protection). Popular open licensing mechanisms, such as Creative Commons (CC) or the GNU software licenses, allow creators, remixers, and content users to quickly and easily understand how we can legally use and adapt other people’s work. CC-licenses are easy to recognize and apply to your own work. A license can be applied to anything copyrightable, such as books, blogs, music, videos, images, software, data, and more!

A more detailed review of Creative Commons licenses is available in Creative Commons and Selecting a License.

Public Domain

A work in the public domain is not protected by copyright. In essential, they are owned by the public and you are free to use, copy, edit, and share the entire work without asking permission.

• Works with expired copyrights
  • In the United States, works published before 1923 are in the public domain.
• Works dedicated to the public domain
  • For example, by using a Creative Commons Zero license.
• U.S. government works
  • Note: projects written by non-government authors with federal funding or projects contracted by the federal government may be copyright protected
  • Note: public domain does not always extend to local government publications. Many state and county publications may be copyrighted; they are not necessarily in the public domain.
• Works governed by early copyright statutes that failed to meet the requirements for copyright protection, such as, notice, registration, and renewal requirements
• Ideas and facts
• Scientific principles, theorems, mathematical formulae, laws of nature
• Scientific and other research methodologies, statistical techniques and educational processes
• Laws, regulations, judicial opinions, government documents and legislative reports
• Words, names, numbers, symbols, signs, rules of grammar and diction, and punctuation (Trademark restrictions may apply)