Copyright Information
Columbia faculty and students can deepen their understanding of copyright and its relevance to their work, course materials, and scholarly communications through our comprehensive resources. These tools provide valuable insights into rights management, copyright laws, and the responsible use of scholarly materials, benefiting both the Columbia community and the broader academic world. To get started, explore our Copyright Basics guide.
The copyright information provided by the Libraries is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice.
Copyright law in the United States is rooted in the desire to capture and leverage expressions of new ideas. At the same time, copyright law recognizes that the impetus to create is based on the ability to access already existing expressions of intellectual creativity and use them as platforms upon which we create anew.
Copyright Basics provides a quick guide to basic copyright information.
Scholars need to keep abreast of how copyright law is applied to and impacts the various ways of sharing their scholarly work and communicating scholarly content.
Sharing Scholarly Work & Open Access includes information about open access, Columbia's Academic Commons, Publishing Agreements and possible addendums, as well as managing your rights when publishing your work.
Consult Our Materials About Fair Use
Fair use offers an extraordinarily important opportunity for both faculty and student scholars to make reasonable and limited uses of copyrighted materials. Fair Use is determined by using four factors that come directly from the fair use provision, Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act.
Whether showing films in your classroom, sharing materials with class participants and colleagues, or using resources in research and publishing, understanding Fair Use in Teaching is important.
Fair Use is a key part of your ability to respond to Copyright Claims from the Copyright Claims Board or in a full Copyright lawsuit.
Copyright & Publishing
Researchers and scholars enjoy an important privilege as part of a greater academic community. University faculty, researchers, and graduate students retain copyright in their scholarly work. This runs counterintuitive to copyright law since, in employment situations, employers retain copyright over the work of their employees.
The Long-Term Value of Copyright
With scholarly communications technologies, scholarly works can be revisited with ease to update currency, re-contextualize and re-use scholarly work, share work with other colleagues in the course of carrying out research and distribute scholarly work globally with the press of a button. The long-term value of scholarly work to both the individual scholar and to the publisher is greater than during the print era.
Learn About Your Options
Scholars are encouraged to become aware and more strategic in managing their copyrights. Seek advice and ask questions. Take charge of your scholarly legacy early in your academic careers. If you are an established researcher, there is an opportunity to harness scholarly communication channels effectively to leverage your scholarly work as you wish.
Copyright Management Strategies
You may assign your copyright to your publisher (as has been typical with print publications). This means, however, that you will no longer control the rights to your work, and you will have to seek their permission to re-use it.
You can license your work to the publisher for specific publication purposes, for a period of time, on an exclusive or non-exclusive basis, and for distribution, whether limited or unlimited.
You can assign some of your rights and reserve some of your rights (a carve-out approach) so that without further permission, you reserve the right to:
- Post and distribute copies on your own website
- Share work as posted on research networks
- Make research results publicly available when a required by a research grant
- Contribute your work to an institutional repository such as Academic Commons
Resources
Learn More About Copyright & Your Rights
Open Copyright Education Advisory Network (OCEAN)
OCEAN is an initiative in copyright education specifically targeted towards libraries, archives, museums and other cultural heritage organizations. For more information see OCEAN's website at https://oceancopyright.org
OCEAN hosts a live copyright discussion series that is interactive and free. Visit the OCEAN website for more information and to register for these learning opportunities.