All members of the college, faculty, staff and students, are expected to abide by the federal laws regarding copyright and intellectual property.
Formats & Regulations:
Legal Information:
Copyright protects "original works of authorship" that are fixed in a tangible form of expression. Copyright may be denoted by © in the work; however, copyright is secured automatically when the work is created, so the symbol may not appear. See Circular 1. The duration of copyright is summarized in SL 15. and explained in Circular 15a and 15t from the U.S. Copyright Office.
The institution shall not be held liable for faculty infringement per Section 512(e) of the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 under these conditions:
- Faculty infringing activities do not involve providing online access to course materials that were required or recommended during the past 3 years.
- Institution has not received more than 2 notifications over the past 3 years that the faculty member was infringing; and
- Institution provides all of its users with informational materials describing and promoting compliance with copyright law.
Official copyright sites:
- Works-for-Hire- Circular 9 from U.S. Copyright Office
- Overview of Fair Use from U. S. Copyright Office
- Title 17 - Copyright U.S. Code
- Copyright Infringement from U.S. Code Title 17 Chapter 5
- Digital Millennium Copyright Act
- Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary & Artistic Works (U.S. has agreed to abide by this)
- Teach Act
- Computer Crime and Intellectual Property from U.S. Dept. of Justice
Other useful copyright links:
- Copyright Tutorial from University of Texas
- Copyright and Fair Use from Stanford University Libraries
- Copyright and Fair Use in the Classroom, on the Internet, and the World Wide Web from University of Maryland University College
- How to Determine Copyright Status from Arizona State University
- TEACH Act Toolkit from North Carolina State University
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