Copyright and Creative Commons Basics
What is Copyright? What Is Not Protected by Copyright?
Copyright is a form of protections provided by the Several categories of material are generally not
laws of the United States to the authors of “original eligible for federal copyright protection.
works of authorship,” including literary, dramatic,
musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. These include among others:
This protection is available to both published and works that have not been fixed in a tangible
unpublished works. form of expression (choreographic works that
have not been notated or recorded, or
Section 106 of the 1976 Copyright Act generally gives improvisational speeches or performances that
the owner of copyright the exclusive right to do and to have not been written or recorded)
authorize others to do the following: titles, names, short phrases, and slogans;
reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords familiar symbols or designs; mere variations of
prepare derivative works based upon the work typographic ornamentation, lettering, or
distribute copies or phonorecords of the work coloring; mere listing of ingredients or contents
to the public by sale or other transfer of ideas, procedures, methods, systems,
ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending processes, concepts, principles, discoveries, or
perform the work publicly, in the case of devices, as distinguished from descriptions,
literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic explanation or illustration
works, pantomimes and pictorial, graphic, or works consisting entirely of information that is
sculptural works, including the individual common property and containing no original
images of a motion picture or other audiovisual authorship (standard calendars, height and
work weight charts, tape measures and rulers, and
perform the work publicly (in the case of sound lists or tables taken from public documents or
recordings) by means of a digital audio other common sources)
transmission
It is illegal for anyone to violate any of the
What Works Are Protected? rights provided by copyright law to the
Copyright protects “original works of authorship” that owner of the copyright.
are fixed in a tangible form of expression. The fixation
need not be directly perceptible so long as it may be
communicated with the aid of a machine or device.
Copyrightable works include the following categories:
literary works
musical works, including any accompanying
words
dramatic works, including any accompanying
music
pantomimes and choreographic works
pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works
motion pictures and other audiovisual works
sound recordings
architectural work
Last Updated: 8/2/2019
Fair Use Attribution- ShareAlike, CC BY-SA:
Fair Use allows for the reproduction of creative works
for criticism, comment, news reporting, scholarship,
Allows for others to copy, display, distribute,
research and teaching.
perform or modify the work, as long as credit is
given and the new work is licensed under identical
There are four factors that determine if the use of
terms.
copyrighted material qualifies as fair use:
Attribution-NoDerivatives, CC BY-ND:
What purpose does using the copyrighted
material serve? (Educational, reporting,
parody, commercial) Allows for commercial and non-commercial
In what nature will the material be presented? redistribution, as long as the original work is
(published, unpublished, non-fiction material, unchanged and has credit to the original author.
imaginative use)
How much of the copyright material will be Attribution-NonCommerical, CC BY_NC:
used? (small or large quantities)
What effect will the use of the copyrighted
material have on the original work or its Allows for others to copy, distribute, display,
permissions? (is the use of the work perform or modify the work so long as the work is
transformative, is the original work out of not used commercially.
print, is the work under password protection,
does the re-purposed use of the work NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA:
compete with the original work)
Allows for others to renix, tweak, and build upon
Creative Commons License the work non-commercially, as long as credit is
Creative commons license is a copyright license that provided to the original author and the new work
allows a content creator to facilitate the sharing and is licensed under identical terms.
discovery of their work.
NonCommerical-NoDerivatives CC BY-NC-ND:
Through the Creative Commons, a creator can choose
from six licenses to they apply to their work. These
licenses are: Allows for others to share and download the work
as long as credit is given to the original author, but
Attribution, CC BY: the work cannot be changed or used
Allows others to distribute, tweak, remix or commercially.
otherwise build upon a work, even commercially,
as long as credit is given to the original creation.
For more information on creative commons, please
visit the Creative Commons organization website at
creativecommons.org.
Last Updated: 8/2/2019
