9/22/17
Overview
- In the U.S., content including books, journal articles, photos, audio and video are intellectual property and therefore can be protected by copyright restrictions.
- This document attempts to orient you about:
- The right of "fair use" designed for non-profit research, teaching, and scholarship
- Materials in the "public domain"
- How to use Mandala in light of copyright law
- It does not provide legal advice (please see disclaimer below)
Fair Use
- U.S. copyright law provides for "fair use" of copyrighted materials without payment or permission in certain circumstances, which are often associated with non-profit research, teaching, and scholarship.
- Generally this means that you can reproduce portions of a work without securing copyright permission from the publisher and/or author.
- Recent case law has held that fair use will be judged in light of purpose.
- For sufficiently new or transformative purposes, quite a lot of a copyrighted work can be used.
- Old guidelines that emphasized counting words or calculated pre-determined percentages of a given work are no longer useful.
Older "Public Domain" Materials
- Generally, work published prior to 1923 is in the "public domain" and can be reproduced and disseminated in any form.
- A thorough summary hosted by the University of North Carolina can help you assess whether a given work is in the public domain: http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/public-d.htm
Copyright Request and Release Form
The following templates may be useful if you need to seek copyright permission or if your project requires a release form.
- Copyright Request
- Release Form (Oral Histories, Interviews, etc.)
Mandala
- Supports your work within copyright law and "fair use"
- Allows you as editorial user to restrict each asset or collection as needed. You may choose among the following restriction classifications:
- Public
- Private
- Group
- Class
Disclaimer
- This advice orients you and better prepares you for a consultation with your attorney and/or the University's General Counsel
- This document does not substitute for legal advice
- This document focuses on U.S. copyright law and practice
- International copyright varies widely from U.S. law and practice
- Copyright law and it's interpretation are continually changing, particularly in the web environment