A presentation by Claire Stewart, covering copyrightability, fair use, publishing copyright, written for and aimed at a graduate student audience. Delivered in November, 2011.

1. Copyright in ten
minutes or less in

2. What will you create and produce?
What is copyright?
How do you know when you can use
someone else's work?
What copyrights will you control?

3. What is copyright?
• What qualifies for protection and when?
• What are these "copy" "rights" ?
• How long do they last?
• Limitations and exceptions

4. What qualifies and when?
• Copyright protects creative
expression of an idea, not the
idea itself
• Factual information does not
qualify (historical
facts, statistics, telephone
numbers, etc.)
• Must be fixed in some medium;
electronic media qualifies:
email, PowerPoint, MSWord, etc
.
• As soon as it's fixed, it is
copyrighted (by the creator)

5. What are these “copy” “rights”?
Exclusive rights to … In plan English
Reproduce Make copies
Distribute Sell, give away at conferences, give to
your students, make available for
downloading on your web site
Create derivative works Make new work from an existing
work, screenplay from novel, new
presentation based on an old
presentation, translation
Display the work publicly Hang a painting in a gallery
Perform the work publicly Theatrical performance, musical
performance

6. A few basic things to remember
• Copyright lasts for life of the author + 70 years
(but it was not always thus ... rules have changed over the years)
• If you create it, you own the copyright. You do not have to
include a notice or register your copyright, but for more
formal works, this is not a bad idea.
(U.S. Copyright Office help ... here again, rules have changed over the years)
• You can unbundle your rights, you can transfer your rights
• You can share copyright: works of joint authorship
• Works for hire: things you produce as part of your regular
employment

7. (back to U.S. Copyright Law)
Limitations and exceptions
• Only the first sale of a copy
is under copyright holder's
control (109)
• Exception for classroom
teaching (110)
• Exceptions for libraries to
make copies (108)
• Fair use (107)

8. What are the rules about incorporating
works created by others?
1. Is it still under copyright?
if yes then...
2. Does an exception (fair use?) apply?
if no, then ... you need to request permission
Nightmare scenario: your publisher won't include scans in your
book without a signed copyright agreement form ... what do you
do?

9. Northwestern's copyright policy
"the members of the Northwestern University Academic
Community shall own in their individual capacity the copyright
to all copyrightable works they create at the University resulting
from their research, teaching, artistic creativity, or writing."
• Required to make best effort to grant NU a license to use the material for
"reasonable academic or research purposes of the University"
• Stronger claim for instructional materials, University retains right to use
• Specific rules about software, patent-related copyrights, things in which the
university has invested extraordinary resources
• Classifies administrative documents as works for hire
http://www.invo.northwestern.edu/policies/copyright-policy

10. Your dissertation
ProQuest provides a list of
things for which they like to see
permissions:
• Very long quotations
• Reproduced publications
(survey instruments, journal
articles, etc.)
• Unpublished works
• Substantial chunks of
o Poetry & lyrics
o Dialogue from dramatic work
http://dissertations.umi.com/northwestern/
o Music
o Graphical works
• Software developed by
someone else

11. Your dissertation
Standard agreement with ProQuest is a license

12. Contracts: terms you may encounter
• Transfer of all rights in perpetuity
• License of certain rights on a nonexclusive basis
• Self-archiving restrictions*
o only the pre-peer review copy
o you have to wait X months before you can use the
publisher PDF
o only if mandated by a funder
• You can participate in our open access program if you pay
an additional author fee
*self-archiving: posting your work on your web page or depositing it in an institutional or a
disciplinary repository

13. Author addenda
• CIC Author Addendum
http://www.northwestern.edu/provost/about/announcements/cic.html
o Unanimously adopted by CIC provosts in 2006, endorsed by Northwestern
Faculty
o Key features:
 Author has non-exclusive rights to his/her work for academic purposes
 After 6 months, can make full use of publisher's copy
 Author has right to grant employing institution rights of reproduction,
distribution, display, etc.
• Other addenda:
o Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC)
o Science Commons addenda generator
o Directory of addenda, Open Access Directory

14. Photo credits
Slide: What qualifies and when?
Writing (http://www.flickr.com/photos/anotherphotograph/2276607037/) / Tony Hall
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/anotherphotograph/) / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/)

15. Copyright © 2011, Claire Stewart