ScholarWorks@UMass Boston

 

What Is Copyright?

Copyright is a form of legal protection that provides authors of original creative works with limited control over the reproduction and distribution of their work. Under the current law, copyright protection is automatic and begins the moment any “original work of authorship is fixed in a tangible medium of expression. 

The Copyright Act gives copyright holders a set of exclusive rights to:

• reproduce their work, in whole or in part,
• distribute copies of their work,
• publicly perform their work,
• publicly display their work, and
• prepare derivative works based on the original, such as translations or adaptations.

These exclusive rights, however, are subject to exceptions and limitations, such as fair use, which allow limited uses of copyrighted works without the permission of the copyright holder.  Please visit the other sections of this Guide to learn more about fair use and other copyright issues.

What is protected?

Works that are original (not copies of others), display a minimum degree of creativity (unlike a simple A-Z list), and are recorded or "fixed in a tangible medium" (e.g. saved in a computer, painted on a canvas, written on a napkin in the cafeteria) are automatically protected under copyright.

Copyright is frequently associated with literary, pictorial, motion picture, and musical works. However, research papers, computer code, and some figures used in the STEM disciplines meet the criteria for copyright and are therefore protected.

What is not protected?

Facts, ideas, concepts, principles, or discoveries are not own-able under U.S. intellectual property law.  Processes, procedures, methods, and systems are not protected under copyright but may be protected under U.S. patent law. Works that are in the public domain which includes works by the U.S. government and works for which copyright has expired are not protected.

 

Acquiring Permission:

1. First, determine who owns copyright for the work. If possible, authors should look at the agreements signed during the publication process to see if such use is permissible.
2. If a signed agreement cannot be located or if the agreement is not clear on whether electronic reprints are permissible, the next step is to locate the publisher's policy. Many known policies for academic publishers are listed on the SHERPA/RoMEO website.
3. If the publisher is not listed on the SHERPA/RoMEO website, the publisher should be contacted directly. Often a quick online search will lead to contact information for authors' rights management offices within a publisher's site. Templates for permissions request letters that can be used when contacting publishers, as well as other information about copyright, is available through the link below:

 

Creating Change in Scholarly Communication

SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) recently retooled and republished its Create Change resource. The site has been updated to provide faculty with current information, perspectives, and tools that will enable them to play an active role in advancing scholarly information exchange in the networked environment. The new Create Change website is based around the idea that the ways faculty share and use academic research results are changing rapidly and irreversibly. By posing the question, “Shouldn’t the way we share research be as advanced as the Internet?” the site outlines how faster and wider sharing of journal articles, research data, simulations, syntheses, analyses, and other findings fuels the advance of knowledge. It also offers practical ways faculty can look out for their own interests as researchers.

Authors Rights and SPARC Author Addendum

SPARC’s Author Rights educational initiative provides information and resources for faculty about the SPARC Author Addendum, a legal form that enables authors of journal articles to modify publishers’ copyright transfer agreements to allow authors to keep key rights to their articles.

You can view the SPARC Author Addendum in PDF or in Word. Attach this addendum to the publisher agreement that you sign just before a new article is to be published.

Licensing Your Copyrighted Work

An easy way to protect and share your copyrighted work is through a Creative Commons license. Learn more about Creative Commons here.

Please visit our Copyright LibGuide to learn more.

For additional information, please contact the ScholarWorks Administrators.