Did you realize these course units are an OER? Do you want to reuse the content, modify it for your students or colleagues? Guess what … you can, with attribution of course!

You’ll learn more about reusing open content and explicit open license permissions, such as attribution, in Unit 7. However, understanding what makes it possible for you to reuse, modify, and reshare this work is the first step. These activities are legal because when it was created the author released it with an open license. When discussing open licensing it is also necessary to review definitions of important terms and legal requirements of laws and principles applied to a creator’s work and how it can be used or reused. In addition to introducing and defining open licenses, this unit will review and define copyright, fair use, and public domain.

What is Copyright?

Copyright is a form of legal protection automatically provided to the authors of “original works of authorship,” including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works. Copyright in the U.S. is automatically assigned to creators of work, with no registration necessary.

It can be unlawful to use copyrighted works of others without their permission, and no permissions are granted in the case of All Rights Reserved (ARR) works. Activities such as copying, modifying, publicly displaying, publicly performing, and distributing copies of ARR work may be illegal unless permission is granted by the creator. U.S. copyright law generally gives the author/creator or owner of an original creative work an exclusive right to

• Reproduce (copy) or distribute the original work to the public (e.g., create and sell copies of a film)
• Create new works based upon the original work (e.g., make a movie based on a book)
• Perform or display the work publicly (e.g., perform a play)

Violation of one of these rights is called copyright infringement. However, the use may be authorized by copyright limitations (such as fair use).