 Copyright, Fair Use & Permissions October 25, 2012

Part 1: Copyright  Copyright is a legal device that gives a text’s creator the right to control how that text—any work that conveys ideas or information—can be used.  The point of copyright is to give an author control over how their texts are used. Once a text is copyrighted, authors then are the only ones who can legally distribute and/or sell their work (in short, the only ones who should be able to profit off of it).

Part 1: Copyright  The moment you fix an original creative idea into a text, you immediately have copyright over that text.  Though, keep in mind at some workplaces the work you create while there actually is copyrighted by your employer, not by you  Copyright lasts for the artist's or author's life plus 70 years.

Part 1: Copyright In order for something to be copyrighted, the United States Copyright Office demands the work meet the following criteria:  Fixity. The work needs to be able to be stored in some way. A random utterance that nobody recorded cannot be copyrighted; but, once it’s written down or videotaped, it can be.  Originality. It’s not as simple as it sounds, as the work does not need to be completely original and can be an adaption or transformation of a previous work.  Minimal Creativity. This is a subjective category, but for the most part anything that includes some slight creativity will be eligible for copyright protection.

Part 2: Fair Use  While copyright law does protect an author’s work in many ways, the Fair Use Doctrine limits the author’s total control.  The idea is that there are certain ways texts can be used that are “fair” and shouldn’t require payment to, or permission from, the author.

Part 2: Fair Use There are four factors an individual must weigh when wanting to use a copyrighted text.  The nature of the copyrighted work. Is it factual? Has it been published? Fair use favors factual published works over unpublished works or forms of artistic expression.  The market effect of the use. Will the new use of the text be available to a small group of people for a limited time? The broader the distribution, the less likely Fair Use will come into effect.  The purpose of use. It is being used for nonprofit or education purposes? Is it being used for criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research?  The amount of the work used. The smaller the portion of the text, the more likely it is to be protected.

 Music & Video: 10% or 30 seconds of a song, or 10% or 3 minutes of a video (whichever is less) are generally allowable under the Fair Use Doctrine.

Part 3: Permissions  Legally speaking, you only need to get permission from the copyright holder if you want to use the work for commercial purposes, to use the materials more than once, or if you want to use a large portion of the work (especially when it is longer than 2,500 words and/or if you want to use more than 10% of the entire work).

Part 3: Permissions  To get Permissions, you must contact the copyright holder directly and ask for a written description of the use they will allow.

Part 4: Creative Commons  Creative Commons (CC) is a non-profit organization devoted to giving authors more control over how their work is used.  If, as an author, you want to make clear that you don’t mind if others reproduce or remix your work so long as you are given credit, you can signal this through the proper CC license.

Part 4: Creative Commons There are many licenses to choose from, all of which are some combination of the following:  No Derivative Works (nd): Users may copy, distribute, display and perform only vertabtim copies of the work, not derivative works based on it.  Share-alike (sa): Users may distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs the original work.  Attribution (by): Users may copy, distribute, display and perform the work and make derivative works based on it only if they give the author the credits in the matter specified.  Noncommercial (nc): Users may copy, distribute, display and perform the work and make derivative works based on it only for noncommercial purposes

Part 4: Creative Commons To license your work:  Visit where you will answer a series of questions. You will then be given a license that you can include in your text. It will look something like this:  This work licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

YouTube Copyright  YouTube Copyright School:   Fair Use School (response to YouTube): 