"I can just copy this, right?: Introducing Students to Copyright", presented at the 246th American Chemical Society National Meeting, Indianapolis, IN, on Sept. 11, 2013 as part of the "Before and After the Lab" symposium in the Division of Chemical Information

1. “I can just copy this, right?”
Introducing Students to Copyright
Charles F. Huber
246th ACS National Meeting
Indianapolis, IN
September 11, 2013
© 2013 Charles F. Huber
This work by Charles F. Huber is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-
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2. Students and Copyright
“I can just copy this, right?” “ Introducing Students to Copyright Charles F. Huber 246th ACS National Meeting Indianapolis, IN
• Students need to be aware of the implications
of copyright law for them in two respects:
– As users of copyrighted materials
– As creators of copyrighted materials
• Undergraduates are primarily involved as
users.
• Graduate students are involved as users and
creators.

3. Undergraduates and Copyright
• Undergraduates don’t need (or want!) to learn all
the subtleties of copyright law. A few basics will
suffice.
• Copyright is a legal protection granted to authors
and creators of any creative work
– So books, articles, graphs, charts, photos, audio, video
are all protected.
• Copyright is for a limited time.
– It’s complicated, but you can say anything published in
the USA before 1923 is no longer copyrighted.
“I can just copy this, right?” “ Introducing Students to Copyright Charles F. Huber 246th ACS National Meeting Indianapolis, IN

4. Undergraduates and Copyright
• Copyright applies to the EXPRESSION of an
idea.
– So raw facts/data cannot be copyrighted, but…
– Arrangements of them (tables, charts, graphs) or
discussion of them can be.
• Users need to have permission to copy,
distribute or adapt copyrighted material.
– BUT…there are exceptions!
“I can just copy this, right?” “ Introducing Students to Copyright Charles F. Huber 246th ACS National Meeting Indianapolis, IN

5. Fair Use
• The main exception students should be aware
of is FAIR USE.
– Use for academic purposes (coursework, in-class
presentations) is generally OK. Copying for mass
distribution or sale is NOT OK.
– How much of a work you use is also a factor:
• Copy a paragraph of a book – OK
• Copy an entire textbook – NOT OK
“I can just copy this, right?” “ Introducing Students to Copyright Charles F. Huber 246th ACS National Meeting Indianapolis, IN

6. Copyright and Plagiarism
• Copyright law does not require you to attribute
the sources you use. However, the rules of
academic scholarship do require it!
• Even something that is out-of-copyright (public
domain) must still be attributed properly or using
it is plagiarism.
• Copyright is a legal issue; plagiarism is an ethical
issue.
• BUT…college/university policies can make
plagiarism subject to harsh penalties.
“I can just copy this, right?” “ Introducing Students to Copyright Charles F. Huber 246th ACS National Meeting Indianapolis, IN

7. When and Where to
Reach Undergraduates
• Introductory lab courses
– Students don’t write many papers in chemistry
lecture courses, but they do copy material for lab
reports.
• Library research classes/lectures
• Writing classes
– Perhaps the best venue, if you have a good
relationship with the writing instructors.
“I can just copy this, right?” “ Introducing Students to Copyright Charles F. Huber 246th ACS National Meeting Indianapolis, IN

8. Graduate Students and Copyright
• Graduate students, as prospective authors for
publication, need to know a lot more about
copyright and related issues.
– They are more likely to bump against the limits of
fair use exceptions in using copyrighted material.
– Understanding and defending their rights as
authors themselves is becoming increasingly
complicated.
“I can just copy this, right?” “ Introducing Students to Copyright Charles F. Huber 246th ACS National Meeting Indianapolis, IN

9. Downloading Copyrighted Material
• Graduate students are more likely to want to
download significant quantities of copyrighted
material, either for their personal biblipgraphic
databases, or for data mining.
• If this is for academic purposes, it should be
covered by fair use…BUT
– Downloading entire issues of a journal may run afoul
of the quantity restrictions of fair use.
– Separate from copyright, journal tems of use may
restrict or prohibit mass downloaded, automated
downloading or data mining
“I can just copy this, right?” “ Introducing Students to Copyright Charles F. Huber 246th ACS National Meeting Indianapolis, IN

10. Reusing Copyrighted Materials
• Use of copyrighted charts, graphs, diagrams, etc. falls under
academic fair use if it’s for internal use: lab reports,
seminars, etc.
• But if they are to be used in journal articles, dissertations or
conference papers that will be redistributed, permission
must be obtained. If there’s any doubt – seek permission!
• Graduate students need to know how to locate permissions
policies, and determine whether permission comes from
the author(s) or publisher.
• The Copyright Clearance Center acts as a central
clearinghouse for all sorts of permissions issues.
(http://www.copyright.com/)
“I can just copy this, right?” “ Introducing Students to Copyright Charles F. Huber 246th ACS National Meeting Indianapolis, IN

11. Author’s Rights
• Under U.S. law, anything which is committed
to tangible form is copyrighted. The author
owns the copyright from that moment, and
can control who may copy, publish, adapt, etc.
that work. BUT…
• As in all things, there are circumstances that
may modify that, and graduate students
should become aware of these circumstances.
“I can just copy this, right?” “ Introducing Students to Copyright Charles F. Huber 246th ACS National Meeting Indianapolis, IN

12. Co-Authorship
• The copyright of any work with multiple
authors is co-owned by all of them, unless
there is a prior agreement among them to the
contrary.
• Any of them can grant permissions; all must
agree to any exclusive licence.
• In practice, however, faculty advisors tend to
exercise control of jointly authored papers.
“I can just copy this, right?” “ Introducing Students to Copyright Charles F. Huber 246th ACS National Meeting Indianapolis, IN

13. Work for Hire
• Works that are created as part of an employee’s
duties frequently belong to the amployer.
• In an academic setting, this depends on
institutional policy. At the Univ. of California:
– Research papers normally belong to the researchers.
– Teaching materials normally belong to the instructor.
– Other creations belong to the Regents of the U of C.
• Graduate students should seek out and become
familiar with the policies of their institution.
“I can just copy this, right?” “ Introducing Students to Copyright Charles F. Huber 246th ACS National Meeting Indianapolis, IN

14. Publishers and Copyright
• Traditionally, scholarly journal publishers have
required that, on acceptance, authors assign
the copyright for their article to the publisher.
• In recent years, the obligations and options of
authors have become much more complex,
offering opportunities, but requiring more
expertise on the author’s part.
“I can just copy this, right?” “ Introducing Students to Copyright Charles F. Huber 246th ACS National Meeting Indianapolis, IN

15. Open Access:
many things to many people
• Commonly, “open access” publishing is taken to
refer to publishing without a subscription
required for access, growing from the principles
that the widest distribution of knowledge is a
good thing, and that publicly-supported research
should be freely available to the public.
• However, some definitions also include the non-
exclusive freedom to re-use and adapt the
publication.
“I can just copy this, right?” “ Introducing Students to Copyright Charles F. Huber 246th ACS National Meeting Indianapolis, IN

16. Mandated Open Access
• Funding mandates – An increasing number of
funding agencies, both public (NIH) and private
(Wellcome Trust) require some kind of open
access to publications based on funded research.
• Institutional Mandates – More and more
universities (Harvard, MIT, Stanford, UC) also
require deposition of articles in an institutional
repository with open access.
• The general concept of these mandates, as well
as the details of those they must deal with, are
important conceps for graduate students.
“I can just copy this, right?” “ Introducing Students to Copyright Charles F. Huber 246th ACS National Meeting Indianapolis, IN

17. Publisher Copyright Transfer
• As with any other legal agreement, grad student
authors should get used to reading and
understanding the agreements they sign when
publishing an article.
• Major publishers will generally have their
agreements online under “instructions for
Authors” or the like
• A quick way to find summaries of publisher
copyright policies is the Sherpa/RoMEO website:
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo
“I can just copy this, right?” “ Introducing Students to Copyright Charles F. Huber 246th ACS National Meeting Indianapolis, IN

18. SHERPA/RoMeo website
“I can just copy this, right?” “ Introducing Students to Copyright Charles F. Huber 246th ACS National Meeting Indianapolis, IN

19. SHERPA/RoMEO entry for JOC
“I can just copy this, right?” “ Introducing Students to Copyright Charles F. Huber 246th ACS National Meeting Indianapolis, IN

20. Amending Publlsher Agreements
• While publishers don’t generally advertise the
fact, some will allow authors to amend their
copyright transfer agreements.
• There are standard addenda available that
authors can use:
– SPARC Author Addendum
http://www.sparc.arl.org/resources/authors/addendum
– Science Commons Author Addendum
http://scholars.sciencecommons.org/
– Some universites have their own recommended
addenda.
“I can just copy this, right?” “ Introducing Students to Copyright Charles F. Huber 246th ACS National Meeting Indianapolis, IN

21. Creative Commons
• “Creative Commons” (http://creativecommons.org/) is a
non-profit organization that has developed a set
of standard legal licences which authors can
apply to their works.
• While retaining basic copyright, you can grant
selected, non-exclusive rights to users.
• Some open-access journals are now using “CC”
licences; the Directory of Open Access Journals
encourages it, and is considering requiring such
policies for journals to be listed in the directory.
“I can just copy this, right?” “ Introducing Students to Copyright Charles F. Huber 246th ACS National Meeting Indianapolis, IN

22. Dissertations
• Authors must, as with any other
publication, get permission to reuse the
copyrighted materials of others
(charts, graphs, figures, etc.)
• Moreover, if the dissertation is a simple
assembly of published journal articles, the
student needs to check their permissions from
the publisher, to, in effect, reprint the articles.
“I can just copy this, right?” “ Introducing Students to Copyright Charles F. Huber 246th ACS National Meeting Indianapolis, IN

23. Dissertations (cont.)
• Not strictly a copyright issue, but related:
– Many institutions require dissertations to be
deposited in an institutional repository and/or
submitted to ProQuest for non-exclusive
distribution.
– If there is material in the dissertation which is to
be submitted for journal publication, some
journals will require that electronic distribution of
the dissertation be embargoed until after the
journal article appears.
“I can just copy this, right?” “ Introducing Students to Copyright Charles F. Huber 246th ACS National Meeting Indianapolis, IN

24. When and Where to
Reach Graduate Students
• Graduate Student Orientations – not enough time
to cover the issues in depth, but can at least alert
them that you are available to help.
• Library Research Classes – not all grads will take
them.
• Work with Graduate Division (or equivalent) to
get the word out.
• Presentations to research groups – presence of
the advisor lends credibility…and you may be
able to teach the faculty a thing or two!
“I can just copy this, right?” “ Introducing Students to Copyright Charles F. Huber 246th ACS National Meeting Indianapolis, IN