Today, we're going to talk about ownership, rights, and limitations as they pertain to copyright. As we've discussed in other lectures, under current US law, copyright exists as soon as creative expression is fixed, in tangible form. And so that means that most people own copyrights. You probably own copyrights, I own copyrights. And so there are many things in the world that are copyrighted that are sort of all around us on the web and so on. And think about some of the things that you may have created. For example, I paint and so I own a copyright in the paintings I've done in the writings I've done like articles I've written. You probably have similar copyrights as well. >> Well, I'm not talented enough to paint but yes, I do have some poems that I've written and I have other papers that I've written. And, things that I've put on websites so, photographs that I've taken. >> Exactly, yes, so, so, like pretty much everyone in the world now, we, we, both own copy rights. We've talked about copyright as a monopoly but what are the parts of that monopoly? Many copyright scholars call those parts of the monopoly, the Bundle of Rights. And these are the rights of reproduction to me, that is the right to make copies such as copies of handouts for class or copies to put online. Distribution, this is the right to distribute work, such as, again, handouts to class, or offering a book for sale. For public performance, showing a movie in class, performing a play, usually that right involves, moving images. Display, displaying movie stills, pictorial works and so on. The right of display often involves static images, making derivative works, and making digital audio transmissions. This is a specialized right that we won't talk about much at this time. Many of these rights are quite easy to understand, but the right to make derivative works is often a little harder to think about. Some examples of the derivative works are editions, translations, sequels. And there is an interesting and often pretty complicated relationship between derivative works, which is part of the copyright holders bundle of rights. And the right of transformational fair use, which is something we'll talk about in another lecture. >> One of the common examples in education of derivative works is when someone, write a journal article and later, takes that, and becomes a book chapter. >> Right, yeah. >> For example, or the novel that becomes the movie. >> Right. >> So, a derivative work can happen in a host of ways but you're right there is, real uncertainty at times between, what is a derivative work and what might be a transformative fair use. >> Right. So, part of the challenge with that is that a rights holder can give away or sell all or any part of this bundle of rights. And what is unique about copyright and the bundle of rights is that I can both give you a right and keep the right. And that's different than real property that you can touch or personal property [SOUND] that you might have. So, [COUGH] when a copyright owner allow someone else to use or have a license for part of that bundle of rights. We sometimes call that grant a permission and we will actually be talking about permissions in another lecture. So, permissions functions very much like a license, in other context, so in other context I mean we have licenses in our every day lives. We have driver's licenses to drive. Lawyers have licenses to practice. Doctor's have licenses to practice. So, licenses are normally granted for a particular reason and for a particular period of time. So, if you have a license to practice law, then you often have an obligation. If you're going to continue to practice law, to renew it generally every year. If you have a license to drive a car, you might not have to renew that license every year. But you will have to renew that license at some point based on what the state has decided is the appropriate period of time. So the other thing about licenses is that they can be exclusive or they can be non-exclusive. And so an exclusive license is one, where I grant you a right. And it's to you only, which means no one else can make use of that right that I've granted you than you. A non-exclusive license however is pretty much the opposite in the sense that, I can grant you the right. And I can grant Kevin the right, and I can grant others the right, and you can all exercise that right, essentially simultaneously. And I can exercise that right as well. So for example, the right of distribution, I can grant more than one person the right of distribution or the right to use a photograph of mine in a book in one instance. And a journal article that someone else is offer, authoring in another instance. >> I think it's really important to know as much as you can about the scope of the licences you're using and you're granting. Because it's easy to think that you may have gotten what you wish you'd gotten. For example I, I worked one time with a faculty member who had gotten a licence to use some material in a printed course pack. And he was really pretty sure that meant that he could put it on the internet too. But of course he couldn't, the, the, the scope of his licence was limited to the printed course pack. And that's not uncommon, >> Mm-hm. >> Just like if I have a license to drive a car I don't necessarily have a license to drive a motorcycle as well. So when you grant a license another thing that is important to remember is that you have to have the ability to grant it. You need to be the owner of the copyright to grant it and similarly, if you are requesting a license from someone or entity that you think is the rights holder. It's important to be as certain as you can that, that person is actually in a position to grant the license. So, and it's also important as a rights holder, which we all are, to think about the scope of the licenses you want to grant. So, for example, if you are publishing an article, you may wish to grant the publisher the right to publish the article, >> Mm-hm,. >> But you may wish to hold all or some of the copyright, bundle of rights backed for, for your own purposes or perhaps for you colleagues to use in, in the future for educational purposes. So taking the time to make that sort of thoughtful analysis about the license as you wish to grant will often, yield a better result for you down the road. >> That's very true and often authors don't realize that they automatically own the copyright. >> Right. >> In the book or the journal article or the photograph that they've created. And often in publishing situations, the traditional approach has been for the author to sign over, all copyrights to the publisher. And that's not actually a requirement for something to be published. If you look at that list of exclusive rights, the exclusive rights or the rights that a publisher would need, would be distribution because they are going to be distributing, and the other is to make copies. And often, a publisher will want an exclusive right or license to do that, but even that isn't necessarily a requirement for a publisher to be able to publish something. So, for authors, it really is very important for them to consider the rights that they want to retain. And what rights they are then turning over to a publisher, which they will then no longer have control over. So, for teaching purposes, often, teachers will want to be able to use the works that they've created. And, as you say, course packs, or to distribute to their students and if they've signed over all of their rights under that bundle of rights of copyright. They may not be able to do that in the way that they expect that they can. So these are just some of the examples of how licenses can be apportioned, how authors can reserve rights for themselves. And one of the best pieces of advice, I think, for authors is really to consider what they want to negotiate in an author agreement, to realize that author agreements are negotiable. And to consider ways that they may want to reuse their own work and see if there is a way, even if they do transfer copyright to the publisher, that they get back some reuse rights for their own work in the ways that make sense for them. >> And another thing that really is helpful with all of that is, first of all, to read the agreement, that's step number one. And also, once you've signed an agreement, to try and keep up with it, remember where you put it, remember where you saved it. So that if you need to, you can go back and double check what it says. >> Yes, because if you come to one of us, with a question about what you can do, we're going to ask you, what does your author agreement say? So, it's always best to keep author agreements, and it is important that you follow what those author agreements say. >> Right. >> That you have the rights to do. So, thanks for joining us today! We think you are now one step further to becoming a copyright maven.
