© Contacts/Informational Websites:

Barbara Cohen, HumaniTech®
(949) 824-7445
blcohen@uci.edu
HumaniTech

© Intellectual Property:

An intellectual property is any product of the human intellect that is unique, novel, and unobvious (and has some value in the marketplace).

© Copyright:

Copyright is the protection that federal law gives authors and artists to promote the progress of science and the useful arts. The law is intended to provide an economic incentive to create by giving the creators exclusive control over their work for a limited time. However, the promotion of learning and preservation of the public domain are higher priorities than the protection of the creator. Therefore the law is subject to certain limitations allowing nonprofit educational institutions and libraries the right to use copyrighted works. Although you have to seriously consider copyright law since your curriculum materials are essentially publications in their own right that teachers might want to reproduce, do not lose sight of education's need for the free exchange of information. (Copyright Act of 1976)

© Public Domain:

Public domain refers to the status of publications, products, and processes that are not protected under patent or copyright. This applies to text and to images. In the case of images, those in which neither the underlying work depicted nor the photographic reproduction are subject to copyright. Use of such text and images is unrestricted, but be sure it is securely in the public domain.  For a chart to help you work your way through the complexities of figuring out when works pass into the public domain, please see Copyright Term and Public Domain in the United States and http://librarycopyright.net/digitalslider/

© Four Fair Use Factors:

There is no simple test to determine what fair use is, but the Copyright Act sets forth four fair use factors to determine whether use is indeed "fair."

They are:

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole;
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

All four factors are to be explored and the results weighed together. These factors have not been codified and remain subject to interpretation on a case-by-case basis. Copyright and intellectual property rights law is complex, ambiguous, and presently being hotly debated.

Consider also transformativeness of work. Parody and critique are heavily favored by fair use.

© Best Practices (See also HumaniTech's Copyright Guidelines):

General

• Consult the public domain chart or the digital slider tool to see if a work has passed into the public domain.
  
• Weigh fair use principles on a case-by-case basis. Keep in mind the media you're working in, the number of copies you'll be making and distributing, the percentage of a work you're using, open or password protected website, and other fair use factors. Think also of the "calculated risk."
  
  Special consideration for Images: A photograph of a work of art actually embodies two copyrights, one for the original art and another for the photograph of the work of art. It is important that you consider both when determining the rights to an image. Public Domain images may be safely acquired by any appropriate means.
  
  Resources for Images, Copyright, Fair Use, and Public Domain Materials
  
• When fair use principles or public domain applies, still use the same citation guidelines as you would for other sources.
  
• When they do not apply, do the following:
  1. Ask for permission in writing, either by e-mail or letter. Indicate the purpose of your site, by stating, for example, that it is an educational or course web site. Most web site creators, especially if they are educators, curators, or researchers, tend to give permission more readily to an educational site than to a commerical one.
  2. Do not assume that a lack of response to your request is a sign of permission. It is not.
  3. Once you get permission to use the whole or portion of a web site, you should always give credit to the web site creator with appropriate citation, just as you would any other citation from a journal, book, article, etc.
  4. Be certain that you are asking permission from the actual creator or owner of the material. Complete source citation for text and images is one probable indication of a reliable site.
  5. Linking to another site is a good option for text and image references. You ordinarily don't need permission for linking, especially to other educational sites. It is good practice with commercial sites to link to the home page with further instructions to get to your specific reference, as some commercial sites are sensitive to bypassing their home page (and thus their advertising). In general, look for a policy page on the site regarding the linking.
  6. Keep the above points in mind when you're posting your own site so that other web site creators can easily apply these same guidelines for potential use of your material. Give proper labels and citations of text, images, and other media that are included in your site. It is also helpful to indicate those materials on your site that are open for sharing and those for which you require permission. Also include your own contact information.
     
     http://www.humanities.uci.edu/humanitech/copyright/workshop.html