Email: library@icom.edu
Phone: 208-795-4307
Copyright is a form of legal protection provided by the laws of the United States (Title 17, U.S. Code) for the creators of original works of authorship, which include literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and other creative works.
Copyright protection exists from the moment a work is fixed in a tangible form of expression. This could potentially include a DVD, a CD, even a napkin with writing on it. It is the right granted by law to an author or creator to control the use of the work he or she has created. This grants the copyright owner control over the following actions over their material:
These rights apply to you as a creator as well. If you have written a book, a report, a Powerpoint presentation, educational notes, painted a picture, drawn an image, written a song, created a dance and that creation has been recorded in a tangible form, you are a copyright owner. Congratulations!
Under the Copyright Act, section 102, the following is protected:
Works are automatically protected for the life of the author plus 70 years per the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act, which applies to any work created from 1978 onward. The protected status of works published between 1923 and 1978 varies in accordance with how --and if-- they were published, registered, and properly renewed. With the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, materials published, registered, and renewed in the U.S. between 1923 and 1978 stopped falling into the public domain for twenty years, which meant that only materials published before 1925 were reliably in the public domain.
Copyright law and duration also varies per country. However, several countries have worked together to create international agreements that align policies across borders. Foreign works are, for the most part, protected for the same term as works published within the user's country for all signatories of the Berne Convention and TRIPS agreement. The U.S. is an adopter of both the Berne Convention and a party of the TRIPS agreement.
The Public Domain refers to works that have fallen out of copyright protection and belong to the public. Works in the public domain include those works that the copyright protection has expired, been forfeited, cannot be copyrighted, has been abandoned or where copyright laws are inapplicable. These works can be copied, distributed, performed and displayed without seeking permissions or applying to an exception under copyright law.
For example:
This chart from Cornell University goes into much more detail about copyright status and whether a certain work might be in the public domain.
There are several ways you can use copyrighted work.
ICOM Medical Library 1401 E. Central Dr, Meridian, ID 83642 | Tel: (208) 795-4307 |