Copyright and Academic Integrity Glossary

Increasing Student Success

Copyright and Academic Integrity

These terms apply to instructors, program managers, and students on how they handle curricula, media, and publications created by others and attribution to previously published works. These can be enormously complicated issues that may require consultation with institutional legal services to avoid violations and potential legal proceedings. Modern technology has made violations easier than in the past. More comprehensive glossaries on this topic are available in Intellectual Property in the New Technological Age: Volume II Copyrights, Trademarks, and State IP Protections (Menell, Lemley, & Merges, 2019) and The People’s Law Dictionary (Hill & Hill, 2002).

Two terms not added to this glossary are derivative work and fair use. Those two terms were left out since they have been improperly used to justify the current situation of flagrant copyright violations by some in the higher education profession. See Hill and Hill (2002) and Menell et al. (2019) for their definitions.

attribution of intellectual property

1. Definitions: (a) Giving credit to the creator of something. However, ATTRIBUTION OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY does not absolve the person of potential COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT which can lead to financial damage awards and charges of PLAGARISM. ATTRIBUTION OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY is required when using material covered by one or more of the six types of CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSES (Creative Commons, 2019; Hill and Hill, 2002); and (b) Appearing to be similar, a citation is a formal way to provide detailed information of where the quotation or idea could be found.

2. Examples: Articles, books, and images.

3. Compare with COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT, CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSES, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY USE COPYRIGHT, LITERARY PROPERTY USE COPYRIGHT, and PLAGIARISM.

copyright

1. Definitions: (a) “The exclusive right of the author or creator of a literary or artistic property (such as a book, movie, or musical composition) to print, copy, sell, license, distribute, transform to another medium, translate, record or perform or otherwise use (or not use) and to give it to another by will. As soon as a work is created and is in a tangible form (such as writing or taping), the work automatically has federal COPYRIGHT protection. COPYRIGHT covers the following: literary, musical, and dramatic works, periodicals, maps, works of art (including models), art reproductions, sculptural works, technical drawings, photographs, prints (including labels), movies, and other audiovisual works, computer programs, compilations of works and derivative works, and architectural drawings. Not subject to COPYRIGHT are short phrases, titles, extemporaneous speeches or live unrecorded performances, common information, government publications, mere ideas, and seditious, obscene, libelous, and fraudulent work. For any work created from 1978 to date, a COPYRIGHT is good for the author's life, plus 50 years, with a few exceptions such as work for hire which is owned by the one commissioning the work for a period of 75 years from publication. After that, it falls into the PUBLIC DOMAIN” (Hill & Hill, 2002, pp. 114–115); and (b) COPYRIGHT violations are inconsistent with ETHICAL STANDARDS for the profession.

2. Compare with COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT, CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSES, ETHICAL STANDARDS, INADVERTENT USE OF COPYRIGHTED MATERIALS, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY USE COPYRIGHT, LITERACY PROPERTY USE COPYRIGHT, AND PUBLIC DOMAIN.

copyright infringement

1. Definitions: (a) “…someone takes work that is subject to COPYRIGHT law and deprives its lawful owner of (actual or potential) benefits by distributing it. COPYRIGHT law was enacted to protect the legal rights of COPYRIGHT holders to benefit financially from their work” (Fishman, 2009, p. 4); (b) “Whereas attribution of intellectual property can negate the act of PLAGIARISM, it does not mitigate COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT which can occur whether or not the author of a work has been properly identified. Thus, even without addressing the question of material benefits, it is clear that COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT is not co-identical with PLAGIARISM” (Fishman, 2009, p. 4); and (c) “Even though the infringement may be accidental (an inventor thinks he p. or she is the first to develop the widget although someone else has a patent), the party infringing is responsible for paying the original patent or COPYRIGHT owner substantial damages, which can be the normal royalty or as much as the infringers' accumulated gross profits” (Hill & Hill, 2002, 114–115).

2. Compare with COPYRIGHT, CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSES, INADVERTENT USE OF COPYRIGHTED MATERIALS, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY USE COPYRIGHT, and LITERARY PROPERTY USE COPYRIGHT.

Creative Commons licenses

1. Definition: “Developed by a United States non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. Based upon the general principles of COPYRIGHT but not designed to replace them, they created six COPYRIGHT licenses for creators to communicate which rights they reserve and which rights they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators. The six license types are: (a) Attribution - others permitted to distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation; (b) Attribution sharalike - others permitted to remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms; (c) Attribution-noderivations - others permitted to reuse the work for any purpose, including commercially; however, it cannot be shared with others in adapted form, and credit must be provided to you; (d) Attribution-noncommercial - others permitted to remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms; (e) Attribution-noncommercial-sharealike - permits others to remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms; and (f) Attribution-noncommercial-noderivation - only permits others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially” (Creative Commons, 2019, para. 1—6).

2. Compare with COPYRIGHT, COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT, INADVERTENT USE OF COPYRIGHTED MATERIALS, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY USE COPYRIGHT, LITERARY PROPERTY USE COPYRIGHT, OPEN ACCESS, OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE, and PUBLIC DOMAIN.

ethical standards

1. Definitions: (a) Criteria that provide requirements and guidelines for behaving in a manner that is fair to all individuals; (b) In assessment, criteria ensuring that data are collected, recorded, and reported with honesty and integrity; and (c) (In writing and use of COPYRIGHTED materials), the professional uses other people’s created materials in an appropriate fashion.

inadvertent use of copyrighted material

1. Definitions: (a) Common statement made by administrators who discover someone reporting to them in the chain of command has comm...