General information
Authors: A.A.Fuente, Universidad de Oviedo, Spain; A.Texeira, L.Morgado, Universidade Aberta, Portugal.
The general goal of this training material is to help teachers create academic materials while complying with the Intellectual Property (IP) laws, with licenses as the main point of interest. The focus is on Creative Commons (CC) licenses, as this licenses are probably the licenses of choice in the academic field.
Unit 1 introduces the main concepts needed to understand IP, including licenses. In Unit 2 we will learn about CC licenses and how to use them.
Unit 3 introduces additional IP concepts, as differences between countries in IP laws reside in these areas and they must be taken into account by the author of academic materials. These regional particularities are treated in Unit 4.
Creators of materials can use resources from others. In Unit 5 we will learn about the different types of resources that can be used, and a specific process to assure compliance with IP law when using these resources by checking the licenses. Unit 6 shows how to search for these resources considering the resource license.
The last unit is devoted to registration, which is usually the last thing done regarding IP when developing academic materials
Unit 1. Main concepts about Intellectual Property (IP) and licenses
1.3. Copyright fundamentals
In this section we will introduce the main actors and concepts used in copyright: the author of a work, and the rights for the work which are given to the author.
1.3.1. Author
The author is the main actor involved in copyright. The author is the creator of a work, and as such, he or she gets all the rights upon the work. The copyright law, especially in Europe, gives the most importance to the author, who is at the centre.
1.3.2. Work
A work is an ORIGINAL creation of the intellect. Non original creations are not subject of copyright protection.
Nothing special has to be done in order to get copyright protection for a work. The protection of a work starts from the very moment the work is created. The work is protected “by birth”
This means it is not mandatory to register a work (IP registers are common), although it is advisable in many cases.
1.3.3. Types of work
Almost anything falls within copyrighted works. For instance:
- written text
- paintings
- images and photographs
- sculptures
- movies
- plays
- choreographies
- building plans
- music
- novels
- text books
- databases
- SOFTWARE…
In general, different forms of text, images and sounds are protected.
1.3.4. Rights for the author of the work
Copyright gives the author a set of rights upon the work created. The rights are exclusive, as the author is the only one who gets them, and decides on them.
The main rights involved in copyright are:
- Publication right (unveil the work)
- Perform and reproduction right
- Communication to the public right
- Distribution right (make copies and distributing them)
- Transformation right (adapt or modify the work)