INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAWS

and Fair Use Guidelines for Educational Multimedia

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY Intellectual Property is a blanket term for

multiple areas of law that govern the ownership and rights to "products of the mind."

Definition: the intangible rights protecting the products of human intelligence and creation.

Although largely governed by federal law, state law also governs some aspects of intellectual property.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AREAS Intellectual property encompasses

four areas of law, each of which governs creations of different types and promotes different policies: Copyright Trademark Patent Trade Secrets

COPYRIGHT LAW

Copyright laws grant to authors, artists, composers, and publishers the exclusive right to produce and distribute expressive and original work..

Copyright Act of 1976— Protects certain kinds of “original works of

authorship”—whether published or unpublished

Protects works “fixed in any tangible form of expression”

TRADEMARK LAW

A trademark is a name, symbol, or other device identifying a product.

The trademark laws allow businesses to protect the symbolic information that relates to their goods and services, by preventing the use of such features by competitors.

The TM and SM symbols are used with unregistered marks: TM for trademarks, or marks that represent goods, and SM for service marks, or marks that represent services. The federal registration symbol, or ®, is reserved for marks registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Example: Coca Cola®, Nike®

PATENTS & TRADE SECRETS

Patent law provides ownership rights and protection for unique processes, procedures, methods, inventions, and discoveries. It gives the patent owner the exclusive right to exploit (i.e. create, use, sell, distribute) the invention for a limited period of time (typically twenty years from the time of a patent application filing).

Trade secrets law protects secret information that a company or other organization creates or compiles to give it an economic advantage over its competitors.

Back to the Copyright Law . . .

THE COPYRIGHT LAW COVERS . . .

Literary works (books, poems, software)

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 works

DOES NOT COVER . . .

Ideas

Facts

Titles

Names

Short phrases

Blank forms

RIGHTS OF THE OWNER

You have the right to: Reproduce the work Distribute copies of the work Make a “derivative” work (make copies or changes

from the original) Publicly perform the work Put the work on public display

If you perform any of these tasks and are NOT the copyright owner, you are infringing on their rights. Example: copying software, sharing MP3 files,

photocopying, uploading materials to websites, etc.

HOW DO I OBTAIN A COPYRIGHT? You automatically own the copyright to

any work you create as soon as it is fixed in a tangible medium.

You can indicate ownership by using the expression “copyright by” or the © symbol.

You can register for ownership with the U.S. Copyright office; this does provide you with additional legal benefits.

EXCEPTION TO OWNERSHIP In the case of works made for hire, the

employer and not the employee is considered to be the author.

Section 101 of the copyright law defines a “work made for hire” as: A work prepared by an employee within the

scope of his or her employment; or A work specially ordered or commissioned

for use

Fair Use Public DomainRoyalty-Free

If intellectual property is covered by law, what options do we have?

FAIR USE GUIDELINES

Portions, or in some cases the entirety, of a protected work may be used

Legitimate uses include “criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research.”

FAIR USE FACTORS

For use to fall under the Fair Use guidelines, the following factors must be considered: Purpose and character of use—commercial

or non-profit educational purposes The nature of the protected work The amount and substantiality of the

portion used The effect of the use upon the potential

market value of the product

MEDIA - FAIR USE LIMITATIONS

Motion media 10% or 3 minutes, whichever is less

Text material 10% or 1000 words, whichever is less

Music 10% or 3 minutes, whichever is less

Photographs /

Illustrations

5 images per photographer/ artist; 10% or 15 images from a collective work

PUBLIC DOMAIN

Property rights that belong to the community at large, are unprotected by copyright or patent, and are subject to use by anyone You should have documentation that the item is

in public domain before using it Anything published before 1923 Anything created by the U.S. Federal Government

Public domain is not the same as freeware or shareware:

• Freeware: software that is provided without a charge

• Shareware: copyrighted software that is available free of charge on a trial basis

ROYALTY-FREE

Prepared material that can be used—legally—without paying a fee to the artist, publishing company, etc.

Some royalty-free material is available at no cost; however, most material must be purchased.

Royalty-free doesn’t necessarily mean FREE—you may have to pay for it.

REMEMBER . . .

Credit your sources! “Educators and students are reminded to credit the

sources and display the copyright notice and copyright ownership information . . . . ”

When you create a work, you own the rights to that work.

Creating projects for the classroom is not necessarily the same as creating projects for competition—know the guidelines.

REMEMBER . . .

It is permissible to download limited amounts of material for use in a student project, but you can’t download material from one web site and post it to yours.

Know that royalty-free doesn’t mean unlimited rights—but it does expand your options

There is a difference in personal use, educational use, and the workplace.