The goal of this guide is help the MACU community to understand the Copyright Laws in the United States. This guide is meant for students, faculty, and staff to become educated on the different aspects of copyright. This guide is not meant to be legal advice and should not be used in that capacity, for any question reach out to library staff for more information.
This guide is NOT legal advice and should not be used as such. The Watson-Griffith Library is not liable and should not be held liable, should any individual take and misuse the information presented within this guide. The information in this guide should only be used as an informative document, not as legal advice. Please also be aware that laws change and that the information within this guide is subject to change.
Copyright is the right of the owner of the work to control the use of their work. The work has to be recorded in some form of medium, this means that the work is written, saved on a computer, recorded, or in a physical state Copyright applies to many different works, examples being art, books, essays, data graphs, and pictures to name a few. There are exceptions to copyright these being; fair use, library exceptions, first sale doctrine, face-to-face teaching, TEACH Act, and exceptions for blindness and other disabilities.
The creator of a work has certain basic rights in regards to how and what they are able to do with their work. Below are some examples of these rights:
Derivatives of the work
Distribution of the work
Displaying the work publicly
Selling/Transferring the ownership rights of the work
Below are examples of creative works that under the purview of copyright laws.
Works that DO NOT fall under the purview of copyright laws
There are exceptions to the Copy rights laws that allow you to use works that have fallen into the below categories. These categories being:
You can also visit the Copyright Basics guide published by the United States Copyright Office for more details.
Pubic Domain
You do not need to obtain permission to utilize materials that are in the public domain. These materials/works are for works that have expired copyright protections or were ineligible for copyright protections to begin with. The Watson-Griffith Library will not make a determination for you. A useful resources for establishing public domain is Cornell University's Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States chart.
Fair Use
Materials may be used for teaching in addition to purposes such as criticism, commentary, and news reporting. There is a four factor analysis that can help you establish if the work can be used as a part of fair use. These factors are purpose and character of use, nature of the work, amount and sustainability of the portion used, and effect of the use on the potential market. These four factors must be weighed and assessed. For more information refer to the What Faculty Need to Know About Teaching Guide by American University.
Creative Commons
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization that aims to spread knowledge through public domain licensures. Works found within the Creative Commons have as a part of there submission process the understanding that any works submitted are submitted under open Licensure. Therefore this bypasses the having to gain permission from the owner as the owner has already given permission/license for the work to be used.
TEACH ACT
The TEACH ACT addresses distance education (online courses) and was passed by congress to bring distance education copyright guidelines closer to face-to-face guidelines. Utilize this checklist to help determine if your use of the work falls under the TEACH ACT. For more information on the TEACH ACT refer to the American Library Associations guide to the TEACH ACT.
The format for this research guide is taken from Liberty University's Copyright Basic's Research Guide, the U.S. Copyright Basics guide by the Unites States Copyright Offices, and the Copyright Research guide by the University of Harvard.
