Copyright Questions and Answers

Federal copyright law protects many of the video selections available on the IMDS system. Federal law permits – and Indiana University supports – the use of this programming for educational purposes within the limits of “fair use” and other statutory exceptions. You might have a question about fair use, or you might be struggling with determining the ownership of a copyrighted work. Whatever your question, a little background about copyright law will allow you to focus your question and have a better understanding of the answer. The following links will guide you in making reasonable decisions regarding your use of copyrighted materials.

WHAT IS COPYRIGHT LAW?

WHAT IS PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT LAW?

HOW DO YOU BECOME A COPYRIGHT OWNER?

HOW DO I PROTECT MY WORK?

HOW LONG DOES THIS PROTECTION LAST?

WHAT ARE THE RIGHTS OF A COPYRIGHT OWNER?

WHAT IS A COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT?

WHAT IS A STATUTORY EXCEPTION?

WHAT IS FAIR USE?

WHAT IF MY USE DOES NOT FIT WITHIN ANY OF THE STATUTORY EXCEPTIONS, INCLUDING FAIR USE?

HOW DO I GET PERMISSION TO USE A COPYRIGHTED WORK?

WHAT IS COPYRIGHT LAW?

Copyright law is a sub-category of intellectual property law that is designed to protect “original works of authorship” that are “fixed in any tangible medium of expression.” The foundation of copyright law is located in Art. 1 Sec. 8 of the U.S. Constitution which states, “Congress shall have power . . . to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”

The actual statutory copyright law is located in Title 17 of the US Code. The statutes are further expanded upon in legal decisions by the federal courts. To read the statutes and/or to learn more about the copyright statutes, visit the Copyright Management Center’s Law Resources webpage. http://www.copyright.iupui.edu/law_resources.htm

WHAT IS PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT LAW?

Legal copyright protection vests immediately and automatically upon the creation of an "original work of authorship" that is "fixed in any tangible medium of expression." To be protected by copyright, the item to be protected must first have an author. The author is the person who creates the work. Next, the item must have originality – though it need not have a lot of originality. The law tells us an alphabetical listing of names and phone numbers is not original, but advertising layouts, photographs, software, and many other works are likely "original."

If the item is only an idea inside your mind – it is not “fixed in a tangible medium of expression.” To be "fixed in a tangible medium of expression" is defined as the work being sufficiently permanent or stable to allow it to be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated. For example, scribbles on paper, music recordings, paintings on canvas, or documents saved to disk are clearly "fixed."

HOW DO YOU BECOME A COPYRIGHT OWNER?

Each member of the Indiana University community – indeed, probably each citizen and resident of the United States – is the creator and owner of copyright protected works. Copyright law in the United States is today extremely generous toward the creators and owners of new works.

As a result, each one of us creates new protected works when we write journal articles, produce videotapes, create works of art, or write computer software. In fact, under today's law, copyright also applies to notes that we dash off at meetings, letters home to family, and photographs that we take on vacation.

Some works that we create will not belong to us. For example, some works created on the job may belong to our employer under the "work-made-for-hire" doctrine. If the work is a "work-made-for-hire," then all rights in that work belong to the employer. To learn more about “work-made-fore-hire”, visit the Copyright Management Center’s Copyright Ownership Issues webpage. http://www.copyright.iupui.edu/ownership.htm

HOW DO I PROTECT MY WORK?

Under current law, the formal copyright notice is no longer required to secure copyright protection. Nevertheless, use of the notice is still good practice for many practical reasons and for some possible legal benefits that may later arise. The Copyright Management Center suggests that you include the statutory and conventional copyright notice, consisting of three elements: the word "copyright" or the copyright symbol, the year, and the name of the copyright owner. A typical notice may appear as follows: "Copyright 2003, [your name]."

As with the formal copyright notice, copyright registration is also no longer required under current law. But it also provides some important practical and legal benefits. In particular, if you anticipate the need to rigorously enforce protection of the work, or if you plan to publish it, this office recommends registration of the work with the U.S. Copyright Office. You may obtain copyright forms and instructions by calling (202) 707-9100 or visiting the Copyright Registration webpage at the U.S. Copyright Office. The form is simple and the registration fee is modest. http://www.copyright.gov/register/

HOW LONG DOES THIS PROTECTION LAST?

Copyright protection lasts for the lifetime of the author PLUS another 70 years. At the end of the term of protection, the work will pass into the public domain. The terms are somewhat altered for works-made-for-hire which last from 95 years or even 120 years in some cases. To learn more about the public domain, read the Copyright Management Center’s White Paper: Identifying the Public Domain. http://dml.indiana.edu/pdf/dml-copyright-duration-report.pdf

WHAT ARE THE RIGHTS OF A COPYRIGHT OWNER?

The fundamental rights of a copyright owner include: (1) the right to reproduce the work in copies; (2) the right to make derivative works; (3) the right to distribute copies of the work to the public; (4) the right to perform the work publicly and; (5) the right to display the work publicly.

WHAT IS A COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT?

Identifying the legal rights of the copyright owner correspondingly identifies when someone may have violated those rights and committed an infringement. For example, if someone else holds the copyright to a particular work, and you make copies of it, you may have infringed the reproduction right. If you share the copies with colleagues, you may have infringed the distribution right. If you write a summary of the work, you may have infringed the right to make derivatives. If you stand on the street corner and show the work to the passers by and read it aloud to the assembled gathering, you may have violated the rights of public display and public performance.

Clearly, the ability to commit infringements is easy under the law. Fortunately, Congress included several statutory exceptions to prevent a proliferation of violations and to allow many beneficial activities to proceed.

WHAT IS A STATUTORY EXCEPTION?

The Copyright Act sets forth several important exceptions to the rights of copyright owners. Individual statutes make specific allowance for such concerns as distance learning, backup copies of software, and some reproductions made by libraries. The best known and most important exception to the owners' rights is fair use. To learn more about statutory exceptions, visit the Copyright Management Center’s Statutory Exceptions webpage. http://www.copyright.iupui.edu/permstat.htm

WHAT IS FAIR USE?

Fair use is a statutory exception that allows the use of a copyrighted work for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research. To determine if the use of a copyrighted work is fair use, four factors must be considered. These factors include: the purpose and character of the use, the nature of the copyrighted work, the amount and substantiality of the portion used, and the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. To learn more about fair use, visit the Copyright Management Center’s Fair-Use Issues webpage. http://www.copyright.iupui.edu/fairuse.htm

WHAT IF MY USE DOES NOT FIT WITHIN ANY OF THE STATUTORY EXCEPTIONS, INCLUDING FAIR USE?

If your use does not fit within any of the statutory exceptions, and you cannot justify the use as fair use, then you must get permission to use the copyrighted work. Should permission be denied, you must either replace the work with an alternative work, alter the planned use of the copyrighted work, or conduct a risk-benefit analysis. To read more about about alternative options, read Kenneth Crews’s document When You Cannot Get Permission: Dealing with the “Dead End” of a Copyright Quest, available on the Copyright Management Center’s website at: http://www.copyright.iupui.edu/permdeadend.htm

HOW DO I GET PERMISSION TO USE A COPYRIGHTED WORK?

There are three main steps in the permission securing process. Each step may take more time than expected, or even worse, may turn out to be a “dead end” in the quest for securing permission. Therefore, start the process for obtaining permission well before you will need to use the work. The steps include: identifying the copyright owner; contacting the copyright owner; and securing permission in writing. It is important to keep a detailed record of the process. For a step-by-step guide to obtaining permissions, visit the Copyright Management Center’s Permissions Office webpage. http://www.copyright.iupui.edu/permhome.htm

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Page Last Updated: September 5, 2003