1. What is copyright?
If you are a consumer, i.e., user of information, you may think that the answer should be yes. What would your opinion be if you had worked for a year to write a book, got it published by a big publishing company, and the publisher told you that he/she would be giving it away for free because information should be free? Or worse, the publisher tells you that they “lost” your book content, but that they would be publishing their own book using information that is yours? It would be claiming credit for the work you’d done. Would your opinion change at that point? Would you ever write another book?
Copyright law in the United States represents the current “best thinking” to balance the needs of the creators and the users of information: there is a need to provide incentive for scientists, creators, artists, musicians, etc. to produce, just as there is a need for others to be able to use this information. What system would you devise to achieve these needs?
In the United States, copyright law can be found in Title 17 of United States code. Most developed countries have some form of copyright statutes, although they vary in the details. Many say that U.S. copyright law provides less protection for creators than do the copyright laws of other countries, particularly Great Britain; they say that U.S. copyright law gives more rights to the users of information than do other countries. First written in 1790, this law was intended to encourage learning and building from the work of others, and has been modified to address new media. To understand this, let’s look at some of the principles underlying U.S. copyright thinking,
Copyright includes the right to distribute, to make a fair return, to be acknowledged as the creator, and more. This is the “incentive” part of copyright law. If you create a website using your own ideas, the law says, you automatically own the copyright to that website. Many times when an author or a scientist wants to publish a book with a big publishing company, he/she has to “sign over” her distribution rights to this company. If the company publishes a book without securing those rights, and claims the book as its own, it is in violation of copyright law and the company could be sued in federal court.
2. How does copyright work?
The concept of fair use is an important element of copyright law. This is a feature that balances the exclusive rights noted above. It acknowledges the assertion that we all learn from being exposed to the works of others, and that there are limited circumstances that limited use is assumed. Fair Use allows you to cite a phrase from a book you have read and to use it in your paper, with appropriate documentation to credit the original source.
Let’s be clear, it is never okay to copy a part of someone else’s work and claim it as your own. It is considered “fair use” of a work if you copy a small part, such as a couple of phrases, or a paragraph, and cite, or acknowledge who wrote it, and use it in your paper to help make your point.
However, simply citing “educational purpose” does not give a student permission to copy and distribute materials from a class. There is no strict guideline for determining fair vs. unfair use. However, if a copyright infringement case goes to court, the litigators will use a combination of four different criteria to determine if infringement occurred. These criteria are:
- Market impact—did use of the copyrighted material affect the copyright holder’s ability to earn a fair return in the market? Selling or distributing copies may decrease the profit due the owner of the material, and this is often a key in determining the amount of infringement.
- Proportion of work that is used—what is the size of the work that was used, compared to the size of the entire work? A general guideline is that no more than 10% of the original may be used, but the other factors listed here may contribute to the decision on the amount allowed. Less is always safer.
- Nature—what is the nature of the copyrighted work itself? Is it a type of work that others would want to copy? Or should be protected? Some original works of art, performances, software, etc. are encouraged to be copied and shared. However, fair use limits apply, and less is always safer.
- Purpose—was the cited material used for educational purposes? For commercial purposes? There are four purposes which allow the use of copyrighted material without specific permission, they are:
a. educational: to research or pursue scholarly interests for classes or independent purposes
b. news reporting: to share information about an event
c. commentary/criticism: provide commentary, criticism or evaluative ideas about an original work
d. parody: to produce a humorously exaggerated imitation of a work or a collection of works of a particular artist or genre
These are the main considerations for use of copyrighted material, but the major consideration is the impact on the market. For example, there are educational materials that are published with the intent to be sold to teachers and schools, and these are not freely copied for class use, since that would negatively affect the marketing of those materials. Generally, if fair use is cited as allowed, it must not impact negatively value of the copyrighted material. For this reason, less is always safer.
3. Copyright expires
An important balancing factor in copyright law is that copyright does not last forever—it lasts for a set period of time. After that period elapses, the copyright is said to be expired and the work passes into the “public domain.” The law determining the length of copyright period has changed over time, so that when a work was originally published determines how long its copyright term lasts. Works as old as those published in 1923 or earlier have now passed into public domain. For works published since 1978, the copyright term under U.S. law is 70 years after publication or the death of the author, whichever is later. At that point, the work will pass into public domain and able to be reproduced or redistributed freely.
Sometimes, authors choose to give up their copyright before it expires and to make their work immediately and freely available to everyone. This might happen because the author has written software or developed an idea that he thinks will help solve a problem, and does not care about making money from it. This is called open access, or making the work openly accessible. You might have heard the term, “open source,” which describes a similar concept for software that is openly available.
Making a work available through open access is another way that it can be put into the public domain. Works in the public domain can be copied and distributed freely. When this is done, it is done at the copyright holder’s choice, and not the public’s choice. It is important to remember that, even for works in the public domain, proper attribution or ownership/authorship must be stated. It is never acceptable to claim someone else’s work as your own. The way to do this is to state that it is not yours and to state whose work it is, or to “cite” the work.
United States federal government documents are automatically in the public domain, and copyright typically does not apply to works produced by U.S. government employees in the normal context of their job duties. (Note this does automatically apply to international, state, county, or city documents.) This means that they may be used by anyone at anytime for any reason without permission, royalty, or payment. Anyone may reproduce a government document in print or digital form, create derivative works from the document, or perform or display documents publicly.
However, there are exceptions to government documents as in the public domain. Logos, images, emblems, and seals, as well as some text, often fall into this category. In addition, the logos and trademarks of agencies themselves are not in the public domain. Nor are works done by independent contractors for the U.S. government or quasi-governmental organizations (such as the Smithsonian or the National Gallery of Art) necessarily copyright-free; in many cases the authors of such works retain the copyright. If in doubt about the copyright of a government document, it is best to check the specific document in question or contact the agency responsible for its publication.
4. Why do we need this?
When assigned a research paper—for any class or purpose—you are asked to make a proposal or take a stance on an issue, and defend it with evidence. You are expected to find out what others have learned about your topic and to insert your own ideas into the topic. This is why professors require using outside sources in your paper. You build on the works others have created to help develop your own. You need to cite these sources, i.e., you note the use of others’ ideas. It is important to demonstrate that you have chosen reliable sources to quote in your paper. Are you going to trust medical information that you read in someone’s blog or are you going to trust what is published in medical journal respected by physicians?
Most people trust what is published in the New England Journal of Medicine, but why is that? To get something published in a prestigious journal such as the New England Journal of Medicine, or in many other journals, authors must submit their work to a process of review by experts. The submission is “peer reviewed” by others who are knowledgeable in the field. In this process, the identity of the author is usually masked, so that the reviewers can focus solely on the content and can vouch for the accuracy, authenticity, and scientific rigor of the work.
The “reward” for the author is the prestige of having his/her work be endorsed by a well-respected journal. The process is tightly controlled and the work may be rejected for publication if it is of poor quality. This type of publication may also be called scholarly or academic literature because it is usually written by university professors or some other type of expert. Why do you think your professors would want you to utilize this type of information in your papers?
Another kind of publishing occurs in popular literature. Far fewer barriers exist for publication of an article in Time, Newsweek, or USA Today. These articles, while informative, were most likely written by journalists who are paid to investigate and write the articles. Even fewer barriers exist for web page content posted on the internet. Knowing these distinctions about the types of information that is available is important for a successful paper and for you as a consumer of any type of information.
