Understanding copyright

by Thomas Leuthard

We are living in the times where collecting resources for an assignment or project is extremely simple and quick. As a teacher, it becomes extremely important to make your students aware of how to collect resources while not infringing anyone’s copyright. It is also extremely important to follow what you teach yourself. This means you introspect yourself about how you collect resources for your own teaching. You may face situations where you realize that caring about copyrighted material might lead to more effort and time for you and your students, but in those situations you must realize that this will go in long way to make you and your students a responsible digital citizen. While no one might be watching us “stealing” someone’s creative work, it is not the right thing to do. This article is part 1 of “Getting Creative With Copyright Series”. This article talks about the basics of copyright and explains the associated terms that are used in the context of copyright. Subscribe to get updates on the part 2.

It is advisable to help your students understand these terms and encourage them to use while they explain their work.

Disclaimer: Though the terms used with respect to copyright are used globally, there are few references which are specific to United States of America. I request the readers from other parts of the world to share how the copyright laws are similar or different in their part of the world.

So, lets go over the different terms one by one:

1. Copyright

Copyright refers to rights granted to the creator (author) for their literary and artistic work. Every creator is granted these rights irrespective of his/her economic or social status. Copyright gives the creator the exclusive moral and economic right to the work. The moral right gives the author the claim their ownership and prevent the misuse of the work that may harm his/her reputation. The economic rights given to the author are:

• Make copies of their work, such as prints, photocopies, or electronic copies;
• Create derivatives, i.e. new versions or adaptations of a work. A creator has the right to deny or grant how much part of his/her work can be used or not used at all;
• Distribute copies of the work, in what number and where, i.e. in a bookstore or on a Web site;
• Display the work in public, for example, at an art gallery or on a Web site; and
• Perform the work publicly, if the work is a play, piece of music, ballet, or anything else that can be performed by others.

Having exclusive right to the above means, if someone else wants to use the work in any form, they cannot do so unless the author grants permission or transfers ownership. Copyright protection starts from the moment of creation of the work and continues until 70 years after the death of the author or artist

The ideas cannot be copyrighted, but their tangible form can be. This means, any idea that is written on a piece of paper or expressed through drawing, a computer code, movie or a song is protected under copyright. The list of work protected under copyright is exhaustive and may include or exclude few things depending upon jurisdiction of different places, however it broadly protects the following:

• Literary works such as novels, poems, plays, reference works, newspaper articles;
• Computer programs, databases
• Films, musical compositions, and choreography;
• Artistic works such as paintings, drawings, photographs, and sculpture;
• Architecture; and
• Advertisements, maps, and technical drawings.

To know in detail, what can be copyrighted, refer to this resource. In the cases where the author has created something under “work for hire”, i.e. created something as a part of job, the employer holds the copyright to the work.

2. Joint Authors

When a work is created jointly by two or more people , each of them is an author. They are called joint authors and the work is called “joint work”. Joint authorship means the authors are co-owners of copyright in the work, unless stated otherwise. Joint authorship implies that the right to distribute or use the work requires consent from all the authors.

3. Derivative

New work that is created by altering or modifying an existing copyrighted work. To create a derivative work, the permission of the author of the original work is required. The nature of the derivative work and the amount of the work that can be used depends upon the conditions laid out by the creator. The author may demand remuneration in exchange of granting the permission.

According to United State Copyright office, Circular 14 , to be copyrightable, a derivative work must incorporate some or all of a preexisting “work” and add new original copyrightable authorship to that work.

Common example of derivative work include- A movie based on a play or novel , novel translated into another language, drawing based on a photograph, a new version of a computer program.

4. Attribution

Attribution is to give credit to the author of the work.

5. License

License is the permission granted by the author to someone to use their work. However, having a license does not mean that the licensee has the right to redistribute or use the work as they wish. Each license has certain conditions under which the work can be used. For example, the author may decide how can the work can be redistributed, in what number and till what time.

6. Creative Common

Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that has provided free, easy to use copyright licenses that enables authors to share their work depending upon conditions of their choice. There are six ways under which a work can be licensed under creative common.The works licensed under CC are free to use. CC License changes the copyright terms from all rights reserved to some rights reserved. The creative common will be discussed in length in the next part of the series.

7. Commercial Usage

Using a work for profit comes under the commercial usage. Whether or not someone can use the original work for commercial benefits depends entirely upon how the work is licensed. For example- If the work is under public domain, it can be used by anyone for the commercial purpose without any required permission. Similarly, there are few creative common license that allow the commercial usage of work at no cost. The next article in this series will talk in detail about the Creative Common License and how it can benefit the educators and students.

8. Non Commercial Usage

Using any work not for profit comes under non commercial usage. No copyrighted material can be used without license even if the usage is not for profit.

9. Tangible Work

Any work that has a form and can be seen, experienced or touched. A movie, song, poetry, software code are all example of tangible form of work. Copyright protects only the tangible form of any idea.

10. Copyright Infringement

Using any work for commercial or non commercial purpose without seeking permission from the owner is called as copyright infringement. Infringement if proven in the court can lead to criminal charges and penalties. According to Copyright Law of United States of America, the court may seize the infringed articles. If the infringement is proved the the court may order the destruction or other reasonable disposition of all copies or phonorecords found to have been made or used in violation of the copyright owner’s exclusive rights, and of all plates, molds, matrices, masters, tapes, film negatives, or other articles by means of which such copies or phonorecords may be reproduced. The creator is entitled to recover the damage caused by infringement.

11. Public Domain

When a work is free from copyright related restrictions and can be used without any license and fee, the work is said to be in the Public Domain. The public domain works can be categorized under 3 categories:

• Works that automatically enter the public domain upon creation, because they are not copyrightable:
• Titles, names, short phrases and slogans, familiar symbols, numbers
• Ideas and facts
• Processes and systems
• Government works and documents
• Works that have been assigned to the public domain by their creators
• Works that have entered the public domain because the copyright on them has expired. The lifetime of a copyright is the time till which author is alive plus an additional 70 years after the author’s death. If the work is owned jointly, the copyright lasts for 70 more years after the last surviving author’s death.

12. Fair Use

There are certain conditions under which the usage of a copyrighted material without the permission of the author is permitted and non punishable. The copyrighted material can be used under fair use for the purpose of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research. There are 4 factors that determines whether or not usin a certain copyrighted material comes under fair use:

• The purpose and character of the use — The work is not considered fair use if it is used for commercial purpose. However, fair use allows reproduction of multiple copies and distribution of the copyrighted material for non-profit educational purposes.The fair use is more likely if the work is “transformative” in nature, i.e. a part of the original work like quotations or excerpt is used along with the own lessons to teach.
• The nature of the copyrighted work– The work that is factual is more likely to be considered fair use. Similarly, any work that is published has higher chances of being considered fair use compared to unpublished work.
• The amount of copyrighted material to be used– Typically only a small piece of work (mostly 10 percent or less) is considered to be fair use.
• The effect of the use upon the sales of the work — If the use of copyrighted material in anyway harms the perspective market of the author, it cannot be considered as fair use.

13. The copyright notice (©)

In earlier times it was considered mandatory to put a © sign to claim authorship over the work. Currently, the use of symbol © is not considered mandatory in most of the countries. This means that any information that is found on internet without a © cannot be assumed to be in public domain. To use this work, you might sill need permission from the author and seek permission.

Though the article has tried to explain the basic terms that are essential in understanding copyright, I realize there are a lot of things which I might have missed. I urge the reader to write about them in the comment section. The real intent behind respecting someone’s copyright lies in respecting someone’s work. It is extremely crucial to pay extreme attention while using someone’s work, even if it is for a simple school assignment or educational purpose. The simple practice of acknowledgment can go a long way in making the students responsible citizens. It is very natural that the students might feel restrained and worried as something they want for their work might be copyrighted. In retrospect, it is an ultimate opportunity to be creative in how they work under constraints. Do not forget to comment and subscribe. You may also tweet @ClickEinstein.

Cheers

Originally published at blog.clickeinstein.com on December 22, 2015.