This guide was created to inform and support the faculty, staff, and students at Umpqua Community College in regards to Copyright, Copyright law, and Creative Commons Licensing. It provides information and resources on these topics and how they relate to academic activities such as research, teaching, publication, and classwork.
The UCC Library supports teaching and learning at the college by providing guidance for faculty, staff, and students on how copyright relates to the creation, use, and sharing of knowledge.
For questions about the topics and resources in this guide please contact the guide owner below.
Copyright is a form of legal protection that provides authors of original creative works with limited control over the reproduction and distribution of their work. It gives copyright holders a set of exclusive rights to:
These rights are subject to exceptions and limitations, such as "fair use," which allow limited uses of works without the permission of the copyright holder.
Copyright protects "original works of authorship." To be protected by copyright, a work must be original and recorded. It cannot be copied or expressed without being recorded.
Types of works protected by copyright include:
These categories should be viewed broadly for the purpose of registering your work. For example, computer programs and certain “compilations” can be registered as “literary works”; maps and technical drawings can be registered as “pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works.”
What is not protected by copyright?
Under U.S. law, works are protected by copyright automatically at the time of their creation. You are not required to put a copyright notice on the work (e.g. © 2010 New York University), to register the work with the U.S. Copyright Office, or to publish the work.
Although providing a copyright notice is not legally required, it can be a good idea to include one anyway if you are making your work publicly available. A copyright notice should provide a way for people who want to use your work to contact you, such as: "© 2010 [name]. For permissions and questions contact [address/email]."
In most cases, the author or creator of the work is the copyright holder unless they have transferred the rights to someone else through a written agreement, such as a publishing agreement.
If the work is created as part of a person's employment, it may be a "work for hire," meaning that the employer is the copyright holder. In the university setting, faculty writings and other "traditional works of scholarship," such as syllabi and lecture materials are typically not considered to be works for hire.
If two or more people together create a work, they are joint holders of the copyright. Joint owners each have an equal right to exercise and enforce the copyright.
Under current U.S. law, copyright lasts until 70 years after the death of the author. For works made for hire, the copyright term is either 95 years from the date of publication, or 120 years from the date of creation, whichever is shorter.
After the copyright term expires, works pass into the public domain, meaning that anyone is free to reproduce, distribute, or otherwise re-use the work.
Depending upon when a work was created, it is subject to different requirements regarding copyright notice and registration, as well as different copyright terms.
For example, before 1978 U.S. law required that works be published with a notice of copyright to receive protection. Failure to comply with this requirement would result in the work being in the public domain.
Copyright Term and the Public Domain, a guide to copyright duration created by Peter Hirtle at Cornell University, is a comprehensive and useful resource for researching a work's copyright status.
As a general rule, works registered or published in the U.S. before 1925 are in the public domain.
Works that are in the public domain in the U.S. are not protected by copyright because
You can use any U.S. work in the public domain in any way that you want, as much as you want. They belong to the public. Keep in mind, however, that the requirements for public domain vary by country.
There are several great resources for finding and accessing materials in the public domain:
Works fall into the public domain for three main reasons:
As a general rule, most works enter the public domain because of old age. This includes any work published in the United States before 1923.
Another large block of works are in the public domain because they were published before 1964 and copyright was not renewed. (Renewal was a requirement for works published before 1978.)
A smaller group of works fell into the public domain because they were published without copyright notice (copyright notice was necessary for works published in the United States before March 1, 1989).
This chart shows when a work will pass into copyright.
Use the Copyright Slider Tool to determine is a work is still protected by copyright.
The information presented in this guide is intended for informational purposes and should not be construed as legal advice. The content in this guide was adapted from the Copyright guide from NYU Libraries.
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Umpqua Community College Library, 1140 Umpqua College Rd., Roseburg, OR 97470, 541-440-4640
Except where otherwise noted, content in these research guides is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
