PLEASE NOTE: The following Copyright and IP Summary is provided as an example only and does not in any way constitute legal advice. It was created according to the specifications of a particular institution within a particular jurisdiction and may reflect a legal situation that does not hold for your institution. Please consult with lawyers for your Institution in the creation of this or any other legal document pertaining to your OCW project.

[Your Institution Name's] OPENCOURSEWARE IP SUMMARY

You may be accustomed to using third-party materials in the classroom under the “fair use” provision of the copyright law, and this may well be entirely proper and appropriate. “Fair use,” however, is very limited as to purpose, duration, and audience for the use of the material. Open publication and use as intended by OCW does not, by and large, qualify for “fair use” treatment.

OCW course materials are made available to the public under a license that:

• Grants users the right to use and distribute the materials either as-is, or in a modified form:
• Allows users to create derivative works:
• Edit
• Translate
• Reformat
• Add to, combine with, or incorporate into other materials
• Obliges users to meet certain requirements as a condition of use:
  • Use must be non-commercial (optional)
  • Materials must be attributed to [Your Institution] and to original author/contributor
  • Publication or distribution of original or derivative materials must be offered freely to others under identical terms (“share alike”) (optional).

OCW copyright clearance process—when do we need permission to publish material?

• Always
• Exceptions: [Your Institution] owns material, or it is in the public domain

Who/how/where do we get permission?

• Original faculty contributors (faculty, sometimes students) grant permission by signing the “Intellectual Property Notice and License Form.”
• Other permissions are obtained by the OCW Intellectual Property Team, based on citation information provided by faculty.

Permission obstacles and issues

• Permission failure: owner unknown, unresponsive, or denies request
• Restrictions: permission is for limited time/use that is incompatible with OCW intent
• Royalties: owner wants (too much) money for permission.

What can we do—with faculty approval—when unable to secure compatible permission?

• Find an alternative object that is clear of IP issues
• Commission our own substitute/replacement object
• Delete object from OCW version of the published course.

Helpful resources

Web research sources

• US Copyright Office—Guide to copyright law, including a useful FAQ list: http://www.copyright.gov/
• World Intellectual Property Organization—http://www.wipo.int
• WHEN U.S. WORKS PASS INTO THE PUBLIC DOMAIN by Lolly Gasaway, University of North Carolina: http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/public-d.htm
• [Your Institution's] Libraries
• Books in Print : http://www.booksinprint.com/bip/
• Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory: http://ulrichsweb.com/ulrichsweb/
• Library of Congress Online Catalog: http://catalog.loc.gov/
• Harvard’s Hollis Library search page: http://lib.harvard.edu/search.html
• University of Texas Crash Course in Copyright: http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/Intellectualproperty/cprtindx.htm
• University of Maryland Center for Intellectual Property and Copyright in the Digital Environment: http://www.umuc.edu/distance/odell/cip/
• [Your Institution's] policy on Intellectual Property.
• [Your Institution's] policy on Reproduction of copyrighted materials.

Open Knowledge sites

• Creative Commons—the source of the OCW license: http://creativecommons.org/
• GNU Public License — http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
• AERA SIG Communication of Research—Ejournals in Education: free journals: http://aera-cr.asu.edu/ejournals/
• Connexions—Open Textbook site: http://cnx.org/
• http://www.gutenberg.org/ —Online source of free e-books. Note: this site has two categories of ebooks:
• Public domain books whose copyright in the United States has expired
• Copyrighted books whose author gave Project Gutenberg permission to distribute them.
• Open Educational Resources Development Gateway—educational resources searchable by discipline and level of study: http://topics.developmentgateway.org/openeducation