Register your unpublished works through the U.S. Copyright Office.
Section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law provides four factors to determine whether the use of copyrighted work is a fair one:
For help in making a fair use evaluation, please see the Fair Use Evaluator.
The difference between “fair use” and “infringement” of a copyright-protected work is not easy to determine. The burden of establishing a “fair use” is on the user and requires a very circumstance-specific analysis of the intended use or reuse of a work. Here are three examples that illustrate this challenge:
Weight of Evidence Favors Fair Use |
Gray Area – Opinions May Vary |
Weight of Evidence Does Not Favor Fair Use |
Scanning three pages of a 120 page book and posting it to Blackboard |
Scanning seven pages of a 120 page book and posting it to Blackboard for |
Scanning an entire book and posting |
If the scanned pages are not the “core” of the work in question, a favorable argument for “fair use” exists. |
The amount exceeds established standards for acceptable amounts by one page (i.e. greater than 5%). However, courts are not bound by established standards and the Copyright Act contains no such standards. Opinions will vary. |
Scanning an entire book clearly |
The term “public domain” encompasses those materials that are not protected by intellectual property laws such as copyright, trademark, or patent laws. No individual owns these works; rather, they are owned by the public. Anyone can use a public domain work without obtaining permission and without citing the original author, but no one can ever own it.
Copyright has expired for all works made in the United States prior to 1926. If the publication date is before January 1, 1926, then the work is in the Public Domain.
For works published after 1977, copyright will not expire until 70 years after the last surviving author dies.
The Copyright failed to affix the required notice.
Works published in the United States before 1978 immediately entered the public domain if they were generally published without a proper copyright notice. Which required the copyright symbol © (for phonorecords, the symbol ℗) word copyright of the abbreviation copr. along with the name of the holder and the date of first publication. © 1959 John Doe.
Between 1979 and 1989 works published in the United States would entered the public domain if a registration was made within 5 years of initial publication with the Copyright Office and reasonable effort was made to correct the omission on all copies distributed in the U.S. after the omission is discovered.
Works published in the United States before 1964 fall into the public domain if copyright was not renewed with the Copyright Office during the 28th year after publication. No renewal meant a loss of copyright.
For works published between 1925 and 1964, research with the Copyright Office is needed to know whether the item is in the Public Domain. For a helpful guide to researching Copyright Office records, please see this guide from Stanford University Libraries.
Sometimes, a copyright owner will choose to release their work to the Public Domain. They can do this via a CC-0 license or by placing a statement such as "This work is dedicated to the Public Domain" on their work.
It is important to verify that the person dedicating the work to the Public Domain is, in fact, the owner of the copyright for the work.
Copyright law does not protect the titles of books or movies, nor does it protect short phrases such as, “Beam me up.”
Copyright protection also doesn’t cover facts, ideas, or theories, which has important ramifications for the collection of data. While the facts of data are not subject to copyright, their organization may be. For help with questions surrounding copyright and data, contact Office of Scholarly Communication and Publishing.
(Information for this section was gleaned from "Welcome to the Public Domain" from the Stanford University Libraries.)
With a Creative Commons license you keep your copyright, but communicate to others how they can use your work.
This Creative Commons license generator will help you choose what Creative Commons license you need.