A further clarification of the statement that copyright protection
exists from the moment a work is "created": In this context,
"creation" means putting the work into a tangible form. (I.e., a
bright idea, or a great speech, has no copyright protection -- even if
delivered orally to multitudes of listeners -- unless and until it is
written down or otherwise recorded in a tangible medium.
Another point is that works produced by the federal government are not
copyrighted.
Lastly, even copyrighted materials can be reproduced and disseminated
for teaching purposes (via what the law calls "fair use" -- though
there are limits.
--Jerry Zar
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Just a point of clarification.
In the recent discussion concerning the use of on-line materials for
courses
there has been a distinction drawn between "copyrighted" and
"uncopyrighted"
materials.
According to current copyright law, the only material that is not
covered by
copyright is that which exists in the public domain (i.e. works for
which
the copyright has expired or works deliberately indicated as "public
domain"
documents). Under current law, a work is considered copyrighted at
the
moment it is created. This copyright holds whether the document or
web page
includes an explicit indication of copyright or not. Consequently,
unless
the web document is explicitly marked as "public domain," it is and
should
be considered copyrighted. Hope this helps in sorting out the legal
issues
concerning the discussion of on-line course materials.
David J. Gunkel
Department of Communication
Northern Illinois University