Copyright Essentials for OER
If you want to include copyrighted material in an OER, it is important to understand your options.
Copyright is best thought of as a bundle of rights, granted to authors by the U.S. Copyright Act. Generally, these rights are reproduction, distribution, making derivative works, public performance, and public display. Authors have these rights just by fixing their idea in writing or another form of expression. A common misconception is that you can use copyrighted materials however you’d like, as long as you credit the author or creator. While attribution is important, you need permission to distribute copyrighted work (in an OER or elsewhere).
For works created on or after January 1, 1978, copyright lasts for the life of the author plus seventy years. When the copyright for a work has expired, it is part of the “public domain,” meaning it can be used freely without payment or permission, because it is no longer owned by anyone. Two guides to determine if a work has entered the public domain are Cornell’s Copyright Term website and the Public Domain Slider of the American Library Association Office for Information Technology Policy. If you determine that a work is still in copyright, the following sections provide some strategies for still using the work.
Using Copyrighted Material
Linking and Embedding
You can generally provide a web link to or embed media from copyrighted material into your own materials without permission from the copyright holder. This is different from copying and pasting the copyrighted material into your own work because it allows the copyright holder to maintain control of their content and to generate revenue through web traffic. The primary exception to this rule would be if you provided a link to materials that should not be publicly accessible and allowed your users to bypass restrictions placed on the content by the copyright holder.
Fair Use
If you’re unable to link to the work, consider if your use of the work falls under fair use, which is discussed in more detail below. Always contact IU Libraries Copyright Program Librarian Naz Pantaloni if you have questions while conducting a fair use analysis.
Getting Permission
If linking or using the material under fair use is not possible, you must get the creator’s permission to use the work. Visit the IU Libraries copyright guide for more information about this process.
Fair Use
As you develop your OER, you may find that you wish to use parts of original works by others in your teaching materials. Original works by others will likely be protected by copyright. However, you may be able to include others’ materials if your use of those materials falls under the criteria of fair use. Think of fair use as a defense against potential claims of copyright infringement. Put simply, “fair use allows limited use of copyrighted material without permission from the copyright holder for purposes such as criticism, parody, news reporting, research and schola