Copyright Primer
Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter, you will be able to:
- Define copyright and open licenses.
- Explain the purpose of copyright law in the United States.
This chapter is an adaptation of the chapter, “Copyright and Open Licensing”from the OER Starter Kit by Abbey Elder and is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 International license.
Before we begin searching for open materials, it is important to gain a basic understanding of copyright, licensing, and the impact on open resources. An open license is a vital component of an open educational resource. Because of this, it is important that you understand how open licenses work within copyright law.
View this brief (3 minutes and 46 seconds) video about open licenses and how they work.
Attribution: “Attribution and Fair Use: Copyright and in Open Education #1” by Abbey Elder is licensed CC BY 4.0.
Copyright Law
U.S. copyright law protects an author’s rights over their original creative works (e.g., research articles, books and manuscripts, artwork, video and audio recordings, musical compositions, architectural designs, video games, and unpublished creative works).[1] As soon as something is “fixed in a tangible medium of expression,” it is automatically protected by copyright. A resource is considered fixed when:
“its embodiment …by or under the authority of the author, is sufficiently permanent or stable to permit it to be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated for a period of more than transitory duration.”[2]
In other words, an idea for a book you want to write is not protected by copyright, but the first draft of your manuscript is. Copyright protection ensures that the creator of a work has complete control over how their work is reproduced, distributed, performed, displayed, and adapted.[3] You do not need to register your resource with the U.S. Copyright Office for this to come into effect; it is automatic.
Public Domain
Works that are no longer protected by copyright are considered part of the public domain. Items in the public domain can be reused freely for any purpose by anyone, without giving attribution to the author or creator.[4]
Public domain works in the U.S. include works whose creator died 70 years prior, works published before 1924, or works dedicated to the public domain by their rightsholder. The Creative Commons organization created a legal tool called CC 0 to help creators dedicate their work to the public domain by releasing all rights to it.[5]
For a fascinating look at works that have recently entered the public domain, visit this blog post from The American Writers Museum. Recent additions include the animated film, Steamboat Willie and The House on Pooh Corner.
Open Licenses
All OER are made available under some type of open license, a set of authorized permissions from the rightsholder of a work for any and all users. The most popular of these licenses are Creative Commons (CC) licenses, customizable copyright licenses that allow others