Introduction to copyright for Empire State College faculty and staff. Includes Fair Use, Public Domain, Educational Use, TEACH Act, Licensing, DMCA, etc.

1. Library webinar for faculty and staff
Sarah Morehouse

2.  The librarians can direct you to
copyright information resources,
such as where to look up the
copyright owner of a certain work
or how to determine if something
is fair use or public domain.
 We can’t get permission/licenses
for you
 Above all, we can’t give legal
advice!

4.  A fact or idea can’t be copyrighted
 What can be copyrighted is the
unique expression of facts and
ideas
 some element of creativity, analysis,
interpretation, organization from the
author

5.  The work doesn’t need to be
published or registered anywhere
 It’s copyrighted as soon as it’s
“fixed in a tangible medium of
expression”
 On paper, film/tape, in stone
 In any digital format, including email and
blogs
 Sculpted into ice? Written on a
chalkboard?
 What matters is that there’s a
means of transmitting the
information from one person to
another across time and space

6.  The right to make copies
 The right to distribute copies
 for profit or not
 The right to make derivative works
and make copies of them and
distribute them
 The right to assign the copyright to
someone else
 A license
 A transfer

7.  Sequels, spinoffs, supplemental
materials, translations,
adaptations, revisions,
conversions to a new format

9.  If a work is in the public domain,
copyright no longer applies to it.
 You don’t need to ask permission to
copy/remix it
 You don’t need to pay royalties

10.  Most works fall into the public
domain because they have reached
a certain age
 Authored works: add 70 years to the
author’s death date
 Anonymous and corporate works: add 95
years to publication date
 Unpublished anonymous/corporate
works: add 120 years to creation date
 Used to be shorter
 Different for non-US publications
 Publications of the federal
government are put immediately
into the public domain

11.  Use this tool to find out whether a
certain work is still under
copyright: http://bit.ly/168N10f

13.  Fair Use exists to promote kinds of
use that the law considers
beneficial to society.
 Using Fair Use is good!
 Fair Use is a legal defense. It
basically means “The infringement
met the criteria, so there’s no
penalty.”
 Those criteria are called the four
factors.

14.  Purpose of the use
 Good: education, research, scholarship,
criticism, commentary, news reporting, a
single copy for personal use,
transformative works
 Bad: anything else, including art and
creativity
 Nature and character of the work
being used
 Good: published works, non-fiction
 Not so good: unpublished works, creative
works
 Amount and substantiality of the
portion used
 Good: a tiny amount
 Not so good: more than you need; most
or all of the work
 VERY BAD: the “heart and soul” of the
work
 Effect on the market for the
original work and derivative works
 Good: none
 VERY BAD: any

15.  You absolutely can save a PDF or
make a photocopy!
 But you can’t share it with
anybody, including your students
 So you can’t use interlibrary loan to get
items to share with your students.
 Also you can’t break copy
protection or bypass access
controls (more on that later)

16.  A transformative work is what
happens when a derivative work
has completely different purpose
from the original.
 Can’t be mistaken for the original.
 Can’t substitute for the original.
 Transformative examples:
 Adding explanation or commentary to a
video or image
 Putting thumbnail images in a timeline
 Not transformative:
 Translating a work, revising it, or putting it
in a new format
 Using a song as background music a video

17.  Parodies are protected by Fair Use!
 Weak protection: tweaking the
original work to be a commentary
on something else
 Weird Al songs (he actually gets
permission)
 Strong protection: tweaking the
original work to comment on itself
 Actually Ironic (they rewrote Alanis
Morissette’s Isn’t It Ironic so all the
examples are actually ironic.)

18.  You can use this worksheet to
determine if what you want to do
is Fair Use: http://bit.ly/12LxKQY
 Keep a copy as documentation

20.  Face-to-face classroom only
 Educational purposes only
 No extra-curricular activities
 No faculty development, conferences,
meetings, etc.
 No handouts!
 Allows performance and display of
copyrighted works
 Images, art
 Documentaries
 Movies and TV
 Music
 Dramatic performances
 You can show whole works, but
you should only show what you
need

22.  ESC is now TEACH Act compliant!
 It acts like the Educational Use
exemption, but for online courses

23.  Images, audio and video!
 This is not a way to distribute readings.
 It has to be inside the LMS. No
external web sites or Web 2.0 tools
 You have to clearly mark or caption
it
 State that it’s copyrighted
 Attribute the original source
 If it’s a fictional or dramatic work,
keep it to a minimum. If it’s a non-
fictional work, you can use the
whole thing.
 It can’t be pirated, bootlegged, etc.
It has to be a legal copy, legally
obtained.
 It’s ok to digitize physical media that you
own, but only if there isn’t a born-digital
version to buy or subscribe to.

25.  Getting permission is synonymous
with getting a license
 There is no exact wording or
format, but you need to get it in
writing. Document everything!
 If you can’t find the copyright
owner, you can’t get permission.
It’s not ok to use the work anyway.

27.  Protects the college from liability if
faculty, staff or students infringe
copyright
 The individual faculty, staff and
students are not protected from
liability
 In exchange, the college has to
comply with DMCA takedown
procedures

28.  If you have infringing material in a
course, web site, blog, etc. then
the copyright owner or their
designee can send a takedown
notice to our copyright agent
 Our copyright agent (the VP of IT)
has to remove the content
immediately, which in practical
terms, means that your site comes
down
 The law does not allow
investigation or notification before
the material is taken down.

29.  You have the right to issue a
counterclaim and put your
course/page/blog back up as is,
but if you do so, the copyright
owner has 14 days to file a lawsuit
against you in federal court
 The safer option is to edit your
course/page/blog so that it’s no
longer infringing, and then it will
be put back up
 Contact a lawyer first!

30.  Students – disciplinary action in
accordance with the student
conduct policy
 Faculty and staff – disciplinary
action in accordance with the
labor-management agreement

31.  Prohibits attempting to break or
bypass either access controls or
copy protection.
 Even if it would otherwise be legal
to make a copy (fair use) you can’t
break in to do it!
 There are a few exemptions that
allow breaking/bypassing copy
protection
 Making ebooks accessible for blind people
 Film studies professors can make
compilations of clips
 There are no exemptions that
allow breaking/bypassing access
controls

32. http://www.esc.edu/copyright
http://bit.ly/14HSH4F