Copyright

Copyright and Author's Rights FAQ

What are Author’s Rights?

The phrase “author’s rights” is usually used in the context of scholarly publishing. However, It applies to any dissemination of an author’s work. This includes all format types including documents, images, audio works, video works, and courses.

I’m a faculty member at Chemeketa and made a (document/image/video/recording) for my class. Who owns the work?

Work done on an instructor’s own time is owned by that instructor. Other works made by a faculty member are the property of the faculty member, except in the following specific conditions:

  1. The College expressly directs a faculty member to create a specified work as part of their regular work assignment or directly compensates a faculty member to create a specified work as part of a work for hire agreement.

  2. The work is created with extraordinary use of College resources. This refers to unusual and substantial personnel expenses, including release time given to faculty, and significant support from non-teaching staff, such as editors, graphic artists, and librarians. Significant use of College resources during sabbatical leave may be considered extraordinary. Such an arrangement shall be agreed to in writing in advance of the project.

  3. The faculty author voluntarily transfers the copyright, in whole or in part, to the College in the form of a signed contract.

  4. The work is created in the regular course of a faculty member’s employment and relates to the administration of the College.

See CFA contract, Article 30 A and B for complete details.

What does the Copyright Status field in the Chemeketa Learning Cloud mean?

Within the metadata of the Chemeketa Learning Cloud the item going into the system will be tagged with one of the following statuses:

    • Personal (The faculty member owns the work.)

    • College (The faculty member created the work on under the conditions listed 1-4, above.)

    • Joint (Rights to the work are owned by the faculty member and the College jointly according to a written agreement.)

    • One Time/Fair Use (The faculty member is adding a portion of a work to the repository under the Fair Use doctrine for this term only. A removal date will be noted in the metadata and the database maintained by CLC staff. If the work is needed for an on-going basis permission should be obtained.)

    • Permission Obtained (The faculty member has obtained permission to use the work.)

    • Licensed/Purchased Content (The faculty member or College has licensed or purchased this content for the repository.)

    • Orphan Works Project (Content digitized by the College in accordance with Section 108 of Copyright Law)

  • Public Domain (The learning object is in the public domain.)

The Learning Cloud can also support Creative Commons licensing statuses for Personal/Joint/College works: creativecommons.org/licenses/

What am I agreeing to by putting my works in the CLC? What is being archived?

By putting your works in the Chemeketa Learning Cloud, you agree that:

    • you are the copyright owner of the work, or that the work is done on College time, or that you have obtained express written permission from the copyright holder to deposit the work in the repository

    • the work does not infringe the copyright of another existing work

    • the work does not contain libelous representations

    • the work does not violate the provisions of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).

By putting your works in the Chemeketa Learning Cloud, the repository gives you the following benefits:

    • Ease of access through the web

    • Sharing with other Chemeketa faculty

    • Ease of uploading multiple formats (as of this writing, audio & video)

    • Hosted storage and back-ups

    • Keeping up with technology (we will update file formats as they obsolesce)

In partnership with faculty and the catalogers in the Library, the CLC will evaluate usage metrics and decide which items retain long-term value. These archival materials will be maintained with digital preservation best practices.

Requests to remove items from the repository for Personal works should be addressed to the reference librarians. Regular maintenance will be done to ensure items under Fair Use are removed in a timely fashion.

What about uploading portions of copyrighted works to the Learning Cloud?

Copyright law is inexact regarding "reasonable portions of a work." Ten percent is a good rule of thumb, but it depends on the length of the initial work. Ten percent of a two-hour movie is probably okay, ten percent of a fourteen line sonnet is a major portion of the sonnet and permission to use the whole poem should be obtained.

For Fair Use works, be cautious and remember to consider any monetary value you are taking away from the creator. Fair Use of portions of a work should also be used on a temporary (single term) basis. Permission to use an item should be obtained if the desired use of a portion or whole work is long-term.

What about using copyrighted works within my own creations?

Authors need to be aware of using works under copyright within their created materials. Using works with permission/attribution given is not only the lawful approach but is also the best practice. Faculty members could be held personally liable for copyright infringement whether or not they are aware of provisions of the law; ignorance is no protection and ignoring the law (willful infringement) can result in stiff fines. While the College may be sued, ultimately the individual is responsible for keeping good records to prove that fair use was considered and/or permissions sought from copyright holders.

I need help clearing copyright. Whom do I contact?

For questions about copyright, please check with Rebecca Hillyer

503.399.8677, Bldg. 2, Rm. 215

rebecca.hillyer@chemeketa.edu

Last updated September 15, 2020