Copyright Information for Faculty and Students: Creators' Rights

Creators of all the types of works listed in the Basics tab's "What can be copyrighted" box have copyright as soon as their creations are in fixed form, such as an electronic file that is saved, as long as it is an original creation and unless it is a work-for-hire. It does not need to be registered with the Copyright Office or have a copyright symbol.

Rights: With some exceptions, the copyright owner has the exclusive right to reproduce, prepare derivative works, distribute copies, perform the work publicly, display the work publicly or to authorize others to do so. 

Sharing rights: Creators can grant all or some of their rights to others, either on an exclusive or non-exclusive basis, through Creative Commons licenses, publishing agreements, or other arrangements.

Student work: Copyright applies, too, to students' coursework, such as papers or posters, although not to their notes on lectures, which are considered derivative, not original, works.

While you are not required to register your work with the U.S. Copyright Office, it establishes a record of your copyright and gives you the right to sue anyone who infringes on your copyright and win monetary damages. You can register your work online through the Copyright Office's Registration Portal. It is fairly easy, but the site does have tutorials and other help if needed. Registration fees vary. The basic fee for registering one work, not-for-hire, online is $45. 

Publishers often (though less often than they used to) want you to give up your copyright to them. If you do that, then if you want to use your own work in class, put a copy in our institutional repository or a discipline-based repository, display it publicly, etc., you would need to get the publisher's permission. But. . . you can negotiate with your publisher to retain some rights!

The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) website provides more information about your rights and how to negotiate with publishers as well as sample author addenda.

In conjunction with SPARC, Creative Commons has created a Scholar's Copyright Addendum Engine that will create a pdf addendum to add to your publisher's agreement.

The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), a UK-based organization, maintains the Open policy finder, a searchable database of the open-access policies of journals, publishers, and funders. 

One simple way to share your work with others is through a Creative Commons license. You retain the rights you choose but specify how others can use your work without having to get permission. There are six licenses from fairly limited to quite permissive, plus a tool allowing you to dedicate your work to the public domain. For more information, see About CC Licenses.