Copyright

Provisions of the Copyright Act

Works prepared by students, staff, or faculty at colleges and universities on computers or word processors are not protected until they are saved as files on computers or disks or printed in hard copy. In higher educational settings, speeches and lectures given by instructors are not generally protected under copyright law, because they are not typically fixed in a tangible medium. Speakers' notes, however, either in hard copy or saved on computers, are copyrightable as items in their own rights. Further, speeches and lectures themselves become protected by law if they are original and recorded verbatim under speakers' authority. These recordings may be more regular today with the prevalence of online teaching and distance education.

Copyrightable works created on or after January 1, 1978, the effective date of the Copyright Act of 1976, are protected from the time they are fixed in tangible media of expression until 70 years after the death of their authors/creators. If the works have corporate authorship, copyrights last 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter. The duration of copyright for works created before 1978 is dependent on several factors (Gasaway, 2003). Once copyright terms expire, works go into the public domain, and advance permission to use them is no longer necessary.

The Copyright Act protects literary, musical, dramatic, choreographic, pictorial, sculptural, and architectural works as well as motion pictures and sound recordings. Each copyrightable work has several “copyrights,” including exclusive rights to make copies of the works, distribute them, and perform or display the works publicly.

The subject matter of copyright includes compilations or collective works and “derivative works.” Copyrights in compilations or derivative works extend only to the materials contributed by the authors of such works as distinguished from the preexisting material employed in the works. Examples of collective works include periodical issues, anthologies, and encyclopedias in which each contribution is a separate and independent work compiled into a collective whole. Derivative works are based on one or more preexisting works such as translations, musical arrangements, dramatizations, fictionalizations, motion picture versions, sound recordings, art reproductions, abridgments, condensations, or any other forms in which works may be recast, transformed, or adapted. Each author or creator may transfer one or more of these copyrights to others. For example, authors who wish their books to be used in classes at colleges and universities sell the copying and distribution rights to publishers in return for royalties gained from sales.

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