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Frequently Asked Questions The following FAQ is available to help you sort through common copyright issues that you may encounter as creators and users of copyrighted works.
1. What does an author have to do to obtain copyright protection for his or her work? Absolutely nothing! Under the present Copyright Act, copyright protection begins automatically upon creation of a work, and the work is "created" when it is fixed in a tangible medium for the first time. The work does not have to be registered with the U.S. Copyright Office, nor does it have to carry a copyright notice. Both are advisable, however. See Questions 7-9 below.2. Why would I want to register my copyright? Although copyright ownership in a work attaches at the moment of creation and is not lost for failure to register, a prerequisite to a lawsuit alleging copyright infringement is registration with the U.S. Copyright Office. Thus, one could register a copyright after an infringement has occurred, but, in general, failure to register a work before an infringement has occurred means that one may not obtain either statutory (as opposed to actual) damages or attorneys' fees if the registration has not been made within three months of the first publication of the work (sections 411 and 412 of the US Copyright Law). See How do I register a copyright? and How do I protect my copyright?3. What is the procedure for registration of copyright? To register a work, the author submits a completed application, a filing fee, and copies of the work to the U.S. Copyright Office. See How do I register a copyright?4. How do I put a copyright notice on my work? A copyright notice is an identifier placed on a work to inform the world of copyright ownership. All publications, multimedia, Web pages, and software should bear a clear, standard copyright notice in a prominent location. If the copyright owner is an entity other than the individuals who wrote the work, such as The Regents of the University of California, acknowledgment of the owners may be included under the copyright notice. A copyright notice must contain either the word "Copyright," the abbreviation "Copr.," or the symbol "©." Although not required, copyright owners often include both the word "Copyright" and the symbol. The word or symbol is followed by the year of first publication and then the name of the copyright owner. See Circular 3, Copyright Notice for more information from the U.S. Copyright Office on the form and position of the copyright notice.5. How long does copyright protection last? See How long do copyrights last?6. How can I tell if a work I want to use is in the public domain? See How to determine whether a work is in the public domain? and Web sources for public domain works.7. What is "fair use?" The fair use of a copyrighted work for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for in classroom use), scholarship or research, is not an infringement of copyright providing this determination is based on weighing and balancing all four factors against specific factual circumstances. For more information on fair use, see Fair Use.8. Do copyright laws apply to the Web? Most definitely! All of the copyright concepts apply to electronic materials. In fact, publishers and copyright owners are more concerned about resources on the Web because the audience is so vast and it is so easy to copy and distribute materials. You should remember that it is not necessary to post a copyright notice for the author to have these rights, even on the web.9. Is it fair use to post copyrighted materials on my course page available to the public? It depends. One must do a fair use analysis to determine if a particular use complies with the fair use criteria. See Fair Use for more information. In general, if access to your Web page is restricted, e.g., by use of a password or PIN, then chances are it is a fair use. If access is not limited, then this use is probably not fair use, because you can not guarantee an exclusive educational use, which is one of the requirements of fair use.10. How can I negotiate a favorable publishing contract that provides open access within the University community? If you are faced with a publication contract that restricts your right or the University's right to use the work in future teaching and writing, you should not hesitate to negotiate new terms. The author could insert language in the agreement that reserves limited rights to reproduce and distribute an electronic version of the article for posting on the author's own Web site and on the TLtC Web site in order to make the article readily available to the UC community. See Sample publishing agreement language. Experience at other universities at which faculty have requested such rights indicates that many publishers accept such language. If the publisher is not willing to grant a non-exclusive license to you or the University to use the work, you should find a different publisher.11. Are works developed under a government grant in the public domain? No. One should not assume that the materials produced as a result of a federal grant are in the public domain. Although works published by the federal government itself may not be protected by copyright, institutions that receive federal funding may usually assert copyright ownership in works produced using federal funds.
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