Do faculty own the copyright to course materials they create even if their contract or university IP policy specify otherwise? An answer on Academia.SE claims that in general, any lectures, slides, textbooks, or scholarly articles you [as faculty] write belong to you and not your school, and this is true regardless of whether the school posts a policy on its web site claiming otherwise, and even regardless of whether they get you to sign a contract stating otherwise. and cites Weinstein v. University of Illinois and Hays v. Sony Corp in support of this statement. However, it seems to me that Weinsten v. University of Illinois explicitly considers university IP policy in making the determination of whether the scholarly work under consideration was "work for hire". First it says The statute is general enough to make every academic article a "work for hire" and therefore vest exclusive control in universities rather than scholars. See DuBoff, An Academic's Copyright: Publish and Perish, 32 J. Copyright Society 17 (1984). The University of Illinois, like many other academic institutions, responded to the 1978 revision of the copyright laws by adopting a policy defining "work for hire" for purposes of its employees, including its professors. then it quotes the university policy on work for hire, and then it makes a determination based on whether the university IP policy on work for hire can be interpreted to apply to the particular work under consideration: The University's copyright policy [on work for hire] reads more naturally when applied to administrative duties. Perhaps the University forms a committee to study the appropriate use of small computers and conscripts professors as members. The committee may publish a report, in which the University will claim copyright. We do not say that a broader reading is impossible, but such a reading should be established by evidence about the deliberations underlying the policy and the course of practice Furthermore, the more recent Bosch v. Ball-Kell refers to a directive in Weinstein, to look for evidence of intent from the history and deliberations that occurred in implementing the University's policy. Thus it is not clear to me whether the so-called "teacher exception" to work for hire applies if the university's intellectual property policy or contract asserts ownership of copyright of course materials.
The leading case in this area is Commun. for Non-Violence (CCNV) v. Reid 490 U.S. 730 (1989).1 There are two routes to employers automatically being the first owner of copyright in a work produced by a hired party: in an employee-employer relationship, or in certain works by independent contractors if an express agreement is made. CCNV construed the definition of "work made for hire" in 17 USC 101 to split paid work into two categories: work done by "employees" and work done by "independent contractors". Copyright in "employees" are automatically owned by the employer. Copyright in work by independent contractors can also be owned by the employer if it falls under a set of specific categories of work (which course materials are certainly included in) and "parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire". The term "employee" above takes on a special meaning in this context. The court held that the test is to use common law agency principles: To determine whether a work is a "work made for hire" within the § 101 definition, a court should first apply general common law of agency principles to ascertain whether the work was prepared by an employee or an independent contractor The court listed 12 (non-exhaustive) factors to be taken into account when deciding whether a hired party is a an employee under common law agency and thus the work would be automatically considered a "work for hire": the hiring party's right to control the manner and means by which the product is accomplished the skill required the source of the instrumentalities and tools the location of the work the duration of the relationship between the parties whether the hiring party has the right to assign additional projects to the hired party the extent of the hired party's discretion over when and how long to work the method of payment the hired party's role in hiring and paying assistants whether the work is part of the regular business of the hiring party whether the hiring party is in business the provision of employee benefits the tax treatment of the hired party This is a case-by-case judgement, and courts have not made a ruling that applies to all university course materials universally. I'm sure we could all imagine arrangements that would fall squarely on the "employee" side of the test, and thus give the employer first ownership of copyright in course material just as easily as we could imagine arrangements that would fall squarely on "independent-contractor" side. There are arguments on both sides regarding whether the typical university professor or lecturer relationship would be considered an "employee" relationship for the purpose of the "work made for hire" definition (I'll come back to reference some law journal articles later). Regardless, even if particular relationship is found to be an "independent-contractor", the employer can still be the first owner of copyright in the works if "parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire" (assuming the work is one of the categories listed in the 17 USC 101 definition of "work made for hire" part (2), and course material certainly is). Last, even for independently contracted work that doesn't fall under one of the special categories in "work made for hire" (2), parties could agree to a contract requiring assignment of copyright. In this case, the employer wouldn't be the initial owner, but they would be due equitable assignment of the copyright by the author. 1. There are various reasons why Weinstein (mentioned in the question) is not relevant. Weinstein doesn't hold that the author of course material is automatically the copyright owner. Weinstein is pre-CCNV. Weinstein was a Seventh Circuit opinion; CCNV is a Supreme Court opinion. The test that was being used at the time by the Seventh Circuit (an "actual control of the work" test) was rejected by the Supreme Court in CCNV.
Multipage contracts, like any multipage texts, will likely bear some level of originality and so they will have a copyright owner. Absent a license allowing you to reuse the text, you will not be allowed to do so. The fact that you were a party to a contract represented by the text does not change your position: your contract does not have anything to do with the copyright of its text, therefore you still need to honor the copyright as if you were not a party to the contract. It is not uncommon that the copyright will be owned by the lawyer who drafted the text. Your business partner who supplied it would have employed/contracted one. Or, the lawyer could have provided the text to your business partner together with the copyright (less common). Why wouldn't fair-use be at play here? Don't you already get the permission to copy and modify the contract from the original party when they send it to you? (Is such right only limited to original execution?) The original party, whether it is the copyright owner or just a license holder, can send the text to you for possible copy and modification in the course of executing the contract with that party only. The copy that you receive is provided solely with the express purpose to make you an offer (so that you know the terms of the contract) and give opportunity to suggest modifications i.e. make a counter-offer. To reuse the text with another party you need a permission/license from the copyright owner. Fair-use won't play here because you'd be using the text for the purpose it was created for—executing contracts—as opposed to, say, writing a research paper on language/phrases used in legal documents. Does it at all invalidate the agreement itself if the party that supplied the contract doesn't actually own the copyright to it? After all, if you're not legally allowed to have a copy of the text that specifies the terms of the contract, how would it be possible to adhere to such terms? Most contracts do not even need to be in writing. The text will be just one of the evidences if your contract, not the contract itself. No matter whether you obtained the text legally or not, it still does its job as evidence. Whilst you may well be sued for the copyright infringement, in no way will it affect the validity of your contract, which will still hinge on those well-known 6 elements having nothing to do with the copyright of the text.
Such clauses are called "copyright assignment", "invention assignment", and/or "works for hire" clauses, partly depending on the clause's intent and wording. They're pretty common in employment contracts for software development and some creative positions. Frankly, the clauses don't actually do much, at least in the US -- copyright law already recognizes the concept of works made for hire (which belong to the employer), and claims too far beyond that are often rejected if they aren't obviously related to company business. With that said, your hypothetical programmer's painting is safe unless it depicts, say, the contents of an email from the CEO. :) Even if the clause technically entitles the employer to claim ownership, the employer has no legitimate interest in doing so. Likewise, that app created outside work is safe as long as it is created using no company resources and is unrelated to the employer's business. If the app is obviously related, that's where things get hairy.
A mnemonic like CRAAP is not protected by copyright. The Copyright office says &quot;Copyright does not protect names, titles, slogans, or short phrases&quot;, so you do not run afoul of copyright law using that or any other abbreviation. There is a registry of copyright-registered works, maintained by the copyright office, where authors may register their works, but legal protection exists regardless of registering. Some abbreviations are protected under trademark law, which you can search here. There are 50 registrations that include &quot;AAA&quot; and three that are just &quot;AAA&quot;, also you'll find WTF and LOL. Trademark protection doesn't forbid all uses of an registered abbreviation. It turns out that &quot;CRAAP&quot; is not a registered trademark, but it could be the registered trademark of a manufacturer of crab traps, so you would not likewise call your crab trap company CRAAP, but it would be okay for plumbing supplies (trademark is relative to business uses, which are described in the registration). The only other imaginable scenario that would impede your plan is a non-disclosure agreement. For that to be relevant, there would have to be a valid contract between you and the teacher which specifically prohibits disclosure of the acronyms. The chances that there is a contract between you and the teacher is so low that it is hardly worth considering, but let's explore that for a moment. A contract is an agreement between parties where each party promises to do something that they are not already obligated to do, in exchange for getting something that they do not already have a right to. You had a contract with the college, not with the teacher. The college clearly would not prohibit &quot;using any information gained in the course of study here&quot;, and the courts would not enforce any such &quot;don't use&quot; wording in a contract as unconscionable (why else do you go to college?). Your contract with the college allows you to take classes and use the knowledge that you gain. The teacher's contract with the college requires her to teach some content, and probably allows her to set certain rules of class conduct. She might have been able to toss you out of class for disseminating her methods, but at this point she has no legal recourse. NDA enforcement is generally limited to protecting &quot;trade secrets&quot;, which are defined in terms of information with independent economic value deriving from the fact that the information is non-obvious&quot;. Also, an NDA will have a time limit associated with it except in the case of highly-sensitive personal information (social security numbers), so the courts will not enforce language saying &quot;you can never make use of this information, or these names&quot;.
17 USC 105 provides that: (a) In General.—Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise. Under 17 USC 101: A “work of the United States Government” is a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person’s official duties. However under 17 USC 105 (b): Subject to subsection (c), the covered author of a covered work owns the copyright to that covered work. The definitions section of section 105 provides that &quot;covered authors &quot; are faculty members at any of 12 specified institutes, academies, colleges, and universities run by the Federal Government, and &quot;covered works&quot; are any textual works created by covered authors. Thus to be free of copyright under section 105, a work must have been created by &quot;an officer or employee of the United States Federal Government as part of that person’s official duties.&quot; and not by a faculty member at any of the institutions listed in 105 (d). 17 USC 105 does not apply to works by the various US state governments, nor to contractors hired by the US Federal government. Works that are free of copyright under section 105 are in the public domain under US law, and may lawfully be used in any way at all, but it is widely considered unethical, although not unlawful, to fail to credit the source of such works, or indeed of older works long out of copyright protection. Note that such works could be protected under the laws of other countries, and such copyrights may apply outside the US. Just because an image or text is published by a US government agency does not waive copyright, nor does the absence of a copyright notice. (Under the Berne Convention a copyright notice cannot be required for protection, and US law implements this in 17 USC 401 (a) which provides that a notice may be present.) The web page linked in the question above includes the statement: Video contributed by Dr. Marcelo Saba, National Institute for Space Research, Brazil This strongly implies that Dr Saba owns the copyright, although it does not prove that. It might be owned by the Institute, or some other employee of the Institute. But Dr Saba could probably indicate who does own the copyright, and on what terms if any the image may be used. When content is protected by copyright, a license to reproduce that content must normally be explicitly stated. The US Freedom of Information Act (FoI) has nothing to do with providing such licenses. It does not matter under US law whether the person wanting to reuse content is a citizen or resident of the US or not, the rules are the same for all. However, US government works may be protected outside the US. It is the location of use, not the nationality of the person using them, that will matter.
As you've presented them, I doubt the functions are protected by copyright in the first place. Originality is one of the threshold requirements for copyright protection, and it demands that the work in question be independently created by the author, and that it possess some minimal degree of creativity. If you're talking about programming at a level so basic that the function truly must be created in a particular way, there is no originality in simply following the instructions. And even if there's some wiggle room, but the language you used has likely been independently replicated by many programmers, that's still not original enough to be copyrightable. What you want to watch out for, though, is the possibility that they've been combined into an original arrangement that is protected. I don't know enough about how copyright law is applied to code to say where or how that line is drawn, but my instinct would be that it could be a fairly low threshold.
Physical content The main consideration with physical content is that reading it does not require making a copy, so uncomplicated copyright law is what’s relevant. Copyright law is about making copies (also distributing). Purchase a novel (a physical book which was legally obtained). There is no copying involved (you do not in fact make a copy in your mind, if you're a human). Under the First Sale doctrine, once a copy is sold by the rights-holder (e.g. the publisher, initially to the bookstore or distributor), that owner can do whatever it wants with that specific copy, including reading or re-selling (and anying thereafter can likewise). Books are sold, not licensed. Copyright relates to copying, not reading. It’s true that all (legal) rights are reserved, but the power to prevent resale is not a right. Book (or anything else) on the ground. As above, with the complication that you aren’t at least immediately the rightful owner. But, you don’t have to be the owner of a protected work to read it (otherwise libraries would not exist). The rightful owner might unsuccessfully try to sue you for reading their property, but reading does not cause damage, and your act is innocent (not even negligent), and not wrongful. Eventually (depending on jurisdiction) you may become the owner if the original owner does not reclaim the book. Reading a copy made by someone else. See above about the relationship between reading and copyright. The teacher might maybe be liable for infringement, but you are not culpable (assuming you didn’t encourage the teacher to make an illegal copy). Digital content However, every item of digital content has to be copied many times, in order to actually be read. E.g. a copy is made to video display memory from RAM, which is copied some number of times from RAM to RAM as the program formats and sizes, ultimately reading a copy stored on disk storage (which is installed from.... using N temp files) Typically what happens is that you acquire a copy of a license to use the content. Some number of copies may be statutorily permitted, e.g. the myriad transitory copies created across the internet as you download the work, or on your computer as you install it. The law addresses this matter in part at 17 USC 117, saying that it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided: (1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or (2) that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful. Since Congress chose the word “program” rather than “file”, the plain reading of this is that permission is always required to read digital content. One may assume, when you purchase an electronic book at the store (you thus own the recording medium), that the work also comes with specific permission to make those automatic copies required to actually read the book on a computer. In order to read the book you must make some number of copies. Seeing stuff on a web page. Let’s also assume that the material is on the page without permission, but you don’t know that, and it just jumps out at you. This raises an interesting question regarding statutory language and web pages. The statutory language is not at all clear about link-clicking (the statutes don't say anything about "links"), and I don't know of any relevant case law (probably because it would be ludicrous to go after an innocent link-clicker) Infringement is defined in 17 USC 501(a): Anyone who violates any of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner as provided by sections 106 through 122 or of the author as provided in section 106A(a), or who imports copies or phonorecords into the United States in violation of section 602, is an infringer of the copyright and if you infringe, you may be liable. 17 USC 106 spells out those rights: the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following: (1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords; … (3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending; … When you go to a web page and click a link, are you reproducing the protected material? Or is the website owner reproducing the material, and pushing it onto you? I don’t know of any decisions that address this kind of technical question. There is no question that the person hosting the infringing material is liable, the question is whether you would be as well? It would be highly unjust to hold the innocent link-clicker responsible. There is a bit of protection for innocent infringement in 17 USC 405(b) Any person who innocently infringes a copyright, in reliance upon an authorized copy or phonorecord from which the copyright notice has been omitted and which was publicly distributed by authority of the copyright owner before the effective date of the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988, incurs no liability for actual or statutory damages under section 504 for any infringing acts committed before receiving actual notice that registration for the work has been made under section 408, if such person proves that he or she was misled by the omission of notice. In a suit for infringement in such a case the court may allow or disallow recovery of any of the infringer’s profits attributable to the infringement, and may enjoin the continuation of the infringing undertaking or may require, as a condition for permitting the continuation of the infringing undertaking, that the infringer pay the copyright owner a reasonable license fee in an amount and on terms fixed by the court. (c) Protection under this title is not affected by the removal, destruction, or obliteration of the notice, without the authorization of the copyright owner, from any publicly distributed copies or phonorecords. (You could be prevented from further use of the infringing material, and liable for specific lost profit). Infringement is not defined in terms of what you know or believe about the copyright status of work. Nevertheless, I would expect that in addressing the question of whether a person had in fact made a copy that they would look at the mental state of the individual, looking for mens rea. This could distinguish clicking a link that unexpectedly pushes protected material onto you, versus attempting to obtain protected material by clicking on a link.
This case did not find that Two Live Crew's version was fair use. Rather it held that it could be fair use, contrary to the lower court ruling that its commercial nature precluded a fair use defense based on parody. The court remanded the case to be considered in light of its holding. The two parties settled without getting a final decision on fair use. It was never really contested that this work was parody. The issue was whether the commercial nature rendered it unfair. The Supreme Court told the lower courts to assess the taking under the full four-factor fair use analysis and that commercial use doesn't automatically make a parody unfair. One source of confusion is that you seem to be conflating parody and fair use. Parody is just one purpose (along with criticism, education, and others) that has been generally held to swing the balance in favour of fair use. Last, the "five word plagiarism rule" is not a legal standard.