What should my copyright say

The United States has copyright relations with most countries throughout the world, and as a result of these agreements, we honor each other's citizens' copyrights. However, the United States does not have such copyright relationships with every country.

For a listing of countries and the nature of their copyright relations with the United States, see Circular 38a , International Copyright Relations of the United States. What does copyright protect? When is my work protected? Computer programs and other types of software are considered as literary works for copyright purposes.

Therefore they receive automatic protection without the need for registration. In some countries, the process of voluntary registration for software may differ from that for other types of work. This is because, as a general rule, copyright protection is automatic and does not depend on registration. Although it may not affect copyright protection, some countries do require a deposit of samples of printed materials published in that country.

Contact your national IP office to find out more. Before taking any steps, you should carefully assess whether the reproduction is in fact an infringement of your copyright refer to the question on limitations and exceptions to copyright. If you consider that there is an infringement of your right, you should try to identify the person responsible.

If it is impossible or inappropriate to solve the problem by informal means, you can seek a legal remedy from a court or other authority. It is usually possible to bring a claim before a civil court for monetary compensation and also to prevent the continuation or repetition of the infringement. Alternatively, if the unauthorized reproduction amounts to the criminal offence of copyright piracy, a complaint may be submitted to the police, public prosecutor or other competent authority in accordance with applicable local law.

In some cases, the use of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms such as mediation, arbitration, expert determination, neutral evaluation, etc. If the unauthorized reproduction of the work is being made available through the internet, it may be possible to notify the relevant internet service provider, asking it to prevent access to the infringing copy. If you are a member of a Collective Management Organization CMO , it will often be enough to request it to take the appropriate steps.

If you are not, it is up to you to act in order to protect your rights. It is often advisable, in such a case, to instruct a lawyer to do so on your behalf. Collective management organizations CMOs monitor uses of works on behalf of creators and are in charge of negotiating licenses and collecting remuneration.

WIPO Lex provides easy access to intellectual property legislation from a wide range of countries and regions as well as to treaties on intellectual property. Many national or regional intellectual property offices also provide information concerning national or regional legislation on their websites. View a list of links to national and regional intellectual property offices to find out more.

The first owner of copyright to a work is generally the original creator or author of the work. There are, however, some exceptions to this rule. In other countries the economic rights are deemed to be automatically assigned or transferred to the employer.

Contact your national IP office to find out more about the particular national situation that interests you. In general you always need authorization this may take the form of licensing or an assignment of rights before using a protected work. For certain uses, the authorization may come from a collective management organization instead of directly from the right owner, for example the authorization to use a song at a public concert.

You may be allowed to use a protected work without any kind of authorization under two sets of circumstances:. As most countries do not impose any formalities on the provision of copyright protection , locating the rights owner of a work can sometimes be difficult. Finding the rights owner of a specific work in a territory is usually possible if you contact: the author or the publisher or a work, the collective management organization , the local registry of works, or the national copyright office.

The content is not legal advice. The statements and opinions are the expression of author, not LegalZoom, and have not been evaluated by LegalZoom for accuracy, completeness, or changes in the law. By Cindy DeRuyter, J. Confirm your work is eligible for copyright protection. Create the copyright notice. The person or entity that owns the copyright. You may, but do not need to, include a statement of rights. For example, some copyright notices include the phrases "all rights reserved" or "some rights reserved.

All rights reserved. Place your notice on your work. Consider registering your copyright with the U. Alternatively, a copy of the material you wish to use may be publicly available on the Internet—for example, through Google Scholar or a repository such as SSRN—in which case you may be able to link to it. When the Copyright Act of was being enacted, there was extensive debate about photocopying of copyrighted material for educational and scholarly purposes.

Congress declined to adopt a specific exemption for such photocopying, and instead left this to be addressed under the fair use doctrine. Section provides that, if the traditional criteria are met, fair use can extend to reproduction of copyrighted material for purposes of classroom teaching. The difficulty comes in applying those criteria.

Recognizing that difficulty, the House Judiciary Subcommittee urged representatives of copyright owners and educational institutions to work out a set of specific guidelines, and the resulting guidelines were included in the House Report on the Copyright Act of Those Guidelines for Classroom Copying can be found at www.

In addition, the Guidelines contain a number of further restrictions, including that an item may not be copied again by the same teacher for use in a subsequent term. The Guidelines also permit, somewhat more liberally, the making of a single copy of excerpts of a work for use by an instructor in research or teaching. When the Guidelines were agreed to by certain representatives of copyright owners and educational institutions, a number of educational groups dissented, objecting that the rules were unduly narrow, even as a safe harbor, and would constrain the reasonable application of fair use to photocopying of classroom materials.

Two noteworthy cases addressing photocopying of course materials have rejected the fair use defense. It is therefore not entirely clear how those precedents bear on copying by a professor or university for non-profit educational purposes.

In assessing the third fair use factor, both courts found that these amounts weighed against the defendant. Both courts also held that the fourth factor weighed against the defendant, primarily because the plaintiffs had lost permission fees for this copying.

On the grounds that a viable licensing market for photocopying of excerpts for inclusion in course packs now exists where it did not in the past, one of these courts distinguished a case from in which an equally divided Supreme Court had affirmed a decision holding that photocopying of journal articles by the National Library of Medicine constituted fair use.

Looking at these cases and the legislative history of the Copyright Act of , the following are factors that a court might take into account, in the framework of the four factor fair use analysis, in determining whether a given instance of photocopying for course use constituted fair use.

Some of the questions bear on more than one of the four statutory factors, which remain the touchstone. You also will find some further guidance on these issues under the question that follows How does fair use apply to use of third-party material on a course website?

As is evident from this discussion, the law in this area is difficult to apply. Outside of the limited Classroom Guidelines, it is hard to know with certainty when fair use applies to photocopying for course use. In view of this uncertainty and the need for relatively simple administrative procedures, a number of units at Harvard have adopted specific rules and practices to ensure copyright compliance in connection with photocopying. Whenever dealing with those units, you should follow their rules and practices.

In other situations, if you wish to make photocopies for course use without obtaining permission from the copyright owner, you should have a good faith reasonable belief that the copying qualifies as fair use.

How does fair use apply to use of third-party materials on a course website? The basic considerations that bear on the use of copyrighted material on a course website are similar to those discussed above concerning photocopying.

The questions discussed above are generally relevant and provide a good starting point. But the difference in the medium—a digital network rather than hard copies—and the fact that more kinds of content can readily be provided via a website—audiovisual works, music and color images, for example, in addition to text—alter the application of the four fair use factors in various ways. Litigation by Cambridge University Press and other publishers against Georgia State University illustrates some of the issues and analytical challenges in this area.

The lower court found five instances of infringement, 43 instances in which fair use applied, and 26 instances in which the publishers failed to demonstrate ownership of the copyright. This time around, it found seven instances of infringement and 41 instances of fair use. There were only a few exceptions. Use of one chapter or less was held to favor fair use in all but two cases. Taking an excerpt consisting of less than a whole chapter was viewed more favorably under the third factor than use of a whole chapter.

The fourth factor favored fair use in a significant number of instances because the publisher had not made a digital license available for the work in question. Where such a license was available, either through the Copyright Clearance Center or the publisher, the fourth factor was presumed to disfavor fair use. Are there practical lessons from this case, which may yet have another bounce? Here are a few thoughts:. When you apply the fair use factors to multimedia content, the analysis is likely to differ in some ways from the analysis of textual materials above.

Though they have been developed primarily by user communities, and may not be fully accepted by copyright owners, the guides are another useful point of reference. The following are some general measures that, while not substituting for the four factor fair use test, will tend to assist a finding of fair use when copyrighted material is made available on a course website:. For each item of copyrighted material you wish to use, make a good faith fair use determination.

If you do not reasonably believe your proposed use passes the four factor test, you should obtain permission for the material or should not use it. Apart from fair use, the Copyright Act contains a special provision, Section 1 , that allows teachers to perform or display a copyrighted work, either live or recorded, "in the course of face-to-face teaching activities.

The only exception is that you may not use a film or videotape that you have reason to believe is an illegally made copy. Note, however, that this special classroom dispensation applies to performance and display only. It does not authorize making copies. Nor does it appear to enable you to put materials on your web page, even for course use, because it requires that the performance or display occur "in the course of face-to-face teaching.

The exemption is conditioned on a detailed set of requirements. If you cannot meet all of the TEACH Act requirements, you may be able to rely on fair use, if the statutory four factor test is satisfied, or you should obtain permission to use the copyrighted material in the video of your class session. There is no fixed rule on whether to affix a copyright notice on something that you write or create where Harvard owns the copyright.

This is the all-purpose copyright designation for any Harvard publication on paper, disk or other medium.

Drafts may bear a copyright notice as well, particularly if they are widely distributed. It is also very useful to append to the copyright notice an indication of the unit at Harvard that administers the copyright, so that people who would like to use the work later will know where to turn for permission. What happens if I receive a request from someone else to copy or quote from a work that is copyrighted by "President and Fellows of Harvard College"?

There is no central "permissions desk" at Harvard. The decision to grant or deny permission to copy or quote from works copyrighted by Harvard—and the decision whether to charge a fee for the permission—is made by the unit that published the work originally or is now responsible for it. For example, the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology can grant permission to quote from, or copy portions of, works published under its auspices, and the Office of Admissions and Financial Aid can grant permission for the brochures about Harvard that it distributes.

It is not necessary to consult the Office of the General Counsel on this decision, but we will advise you on the mechanics of it, or on questions in particular cases, if that would be helpful to you. Do I need permission to use or copy material that has already been copyrighted by Harvard? What provisions should I make when retaining an outside vendor to create a work for Harvard sometimes known as a "work for hire"?

An agreement for the preparation of material to be published by Harvard should always include a provision stating that Harvard will own the copyright.

This avoids later disputes over whether Harvard or the individual creator owns the rights to the work. You can find model forms of Consulting Agreement with appropriate provisions regarding copyright on the Office of the General Counsel website. You should also address this issue if you contract with students concerning creation of copyrighted works.

If I am using a commercial computer program for my work, can I make a copy for a colleague, or a copy for my computer at home so that I can work there?

No, unless the license allows it. A computer program that is copyrighted and virtually all commercially available programs are copyrighted can be used only according to the terms of the license that is purchased, and much off-the-shelf software is limited to use on one computer.

Unless the license specifically provides otherwise, such programs may not be copied, no matter how legitimate the need for its use elsewhere. The solution in most instances is to purchase a license that specifically authorizes the program to be used on more than one computer, either individually or through a server. Site licenses are generally less expensive than multiple purchases of individual programs, and home or laptop computers can be included if the vendor agrees.

Harvard University's firm policy is that no program is to be copied or used except as specifically allowed by the terms of its license.