Copyright

Copyright refers to the rights of an author or creator over the materials he/she creates.  In the United States, copyright refers specifically to protection provided by law to the authors of "original works of authorship," including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works. Copyright law generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to do and to authorize others to do the following: to reproduce the work in copies; to prepare derivative works based upon the work; to distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending; to perform the work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works; to display the work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work; and in the case of sound recordings, to perform the work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.

Fair Use

Fair use is a doctrine contained within U.S. copyright law which allows for limited use of copyrighted materials without permission in specific settings or situations.  These include scholarship and review.

Fair use is judged on four criteria:

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Fair use affords teachers certain rights with respect to using copyrighted materials, but is widely misunderstood and misinterpreted in the school setting.

Licensing

Recent efforts to find a more workable solution to strict copyright laws include alternative structures for licensing content, such as Creative Commons or General Public License.  These licenses allow copyright holders to release their intellectual property in a variety of ways, from limited-use to open-source.

Links

• US Copyright Office
• LEARN NC copyright page
• Newton-Conover City Schools flyer for fair use [pdf]
• Taking the Mystery Out of Copyright [Library of Congress]