OER: Copyright, Fair Use and Creative Commons Licenses

What is Copyright?

Copyright is a type of intellectual property that protects original works of authorship as soon as an author fixes the work in a tangible form of expression.

Original Works - Works are original when they are independently created by a human author and have a minimal degree of creativity. The Supreme Court has ruled that to be creative, works must have a spark and modicum of creativity. 

Fixed works - Works are fixed when they are captured in a sufficiently permanent medium that the work can be perceived, reproduced or communicated for more than a short time. 

Who Owns Copyright?

The creator of a fixed original work is automatically the copyright owner of that work. The copyright for works created as "works made for hire" may be held by companies, organizations, or individuals other than the creator. Creators may also transfer their copyrights to other people or organizations.

What Rights Does Copyright Provide?

U.S. copyright law provides copyright owners with the following exclusive rights:

• Reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords
• Prepare derivative works based upon the work.
• Distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership or by rental, lease, or lending.
• Perform the work publicly if it is a literary, musical, dramatic, or choreographic work; a pantomime; or a motion picture or other audiovisual work.
• Display the work publicly if it is a literary, musical, dramatic, or choreographic work; a pantomime; or a pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work. This right also applies to the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work.
• Perform the work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission if the work is a sound recording.

How Long Does Copyright Protection Last?

It depends on when the work was created. For works created after January 1, 1978 the term is the life of the work's last surviving author plus seventy years. You can look up terms for works created prior to 1978 here:  Duration of Copyrights Circular

Source: https://copyright.gov

 

Fair Use

Fair Use is a legal doctrine that permits the unlicensed use of copyrighted materials under certain conditions. Examples of fair use include criticism, commentary, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. The law covering fair use provides a list of four factors that should be considered to see if an unlicensed use of a copyrighted work is permitted.

1. Nature of the use. Is it for commercial, nonprofit, or educational purposes? Not all commercial use is disallowed and not all non-profit or educational use is allowed.
2. Nature of the work. The use of creative or imaginative works is less likely to be fair use than factual works.
3. Amount of the copyrighted work used. Quantity and quality of the use is considered. 
4. Effect of the use on the market value of the copyrighted work. Does the use harm the market value of the original work?

Copyright law and the provisions for fair use are not matters of settled law. An extensive list of legal cases on these topics is available here: https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/fair-index.html

A teacher's guide to copyright and fair use is available at this link: 

https://www.edutopia.org/article/teachers-guide-copyright-and-fair-use

 

Creative Commons Licenses

Content in this section is from the creative commons licenses website and is licensed under CC BY 4.0

The Creative Commons copyright licenses and tools forge a balance inside the traditional “all rights reserved” setting that copyright law creates. Our tools give everyone from individual creators to large companies and institutions a simple, standardized way to grant copyright permissions to their creative work.

The Licenses

Attribution
CC BY

This license lets others distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.

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Attribution-ShareAlike
CC BY-SA

This license lets others remix, adapt, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects.

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Attribution-NoDerivs
CC BY-ND

This license lets others reuse the work for any purpose, including commercially; however, it cannot be shared with others in adapted form, and credit must be provided to you.

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Attribution-NonCommercial
CC BY-NC

This license lets others remix, adapt, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

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Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
CC BY-NC-SA

This license lets others remix, adapt, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

View License Deed | View Legal Code

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
CC BY-NC-ND

This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.