What is copyright?
Copyright is a bundle of exclusive rights conferred automatically upon the author of a work at the instant of its creation by federal statute (the 1976 Copyright Act, found in Title 17 of the United States Code). Creation occurs legally when a work is “fixed in a tangible medium of expression” for a period of more than transitory duration.
What are the copyright holder’s rights?
Do I need to register my work to have copyright?
No, an original work is automatically copyrighted when it is fixed in a tangible medium of expression, for instance, as a word processing document, a web page, a digital photograph, or a recorded podcast. There are some reasons you might want to register your work, however. Registration establishes a public record of the copyright claim and, for works of U.S. origin, it is required before an infringement suit may be filed in court. If you plan to distribute your work to the public in any way and want to protect it from unauthorized uses, registration is a good idea. Information about registering your work is available from the United States Copyright Office.
If I’ve given the copyright of my material to the publisher, what are my rights to use it?
Unless you have reserved the right to use the work in your contract with the publisher, or have received permission from the publisher, you may use only that amount that falls within Fair Use. This is why it is critical to retain as many rights to your creative output as possible when you negotiate with a publisher. You can attempt to modify any contract to ensure your right to use your work as you see fit.
How can I negotiate a better deal with my publisher and retain important rights?
See our Retaining your Rights as an Author page for strategies to ensure that you retain the rights you need to use your work, including the non-exclusive right to use your intellectual property for your own academic and professional activities, to make it available in digital form on your website, in the Tufts Digital Library, or in course management systems. Read more about creating open access to published work.
Is my publisher likely to allow me to retain some rights?
Traditionally, academic publishers required authors to transfer copyright to them, but non-exclusive assignment of rights is becoming much more common. The publisher receives some rights and the author retains some. To see what some publishers require and what they are willing to let an author retain, take a look at the publishers list at SHERPA RoMEO. It is important to read the publisher’s proposed agreement and to negotiate to retain rights to your own work, so that you can use it in your academic and professional pursuits.
Does Tufts claim ownership of faculty-copyrighted material?
The Tufts University Policy on Rights and Responsibilities with Respect to Intellectual Property states that “the tradition of academic institutions is to give faculty members the right to retain ownership of their copyrightable products…” However, creators will be expected to grant non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual licenses to the University for copyrightable material that is developed for University courses or curricula, so that the University’s continued use of such material for educational purposes would not be jeopardized. The University will assert ownership rights to copyrightable intellectual property developed under certain circumstances.