Should academic works be copyrighted?

Copyright

Copyrights, a topic of considerable interest to faculty, staff, and students at institutions of higher learning, are intangible rights granted by the federal Copyright Act to authors or creators of original artistic or literary works that can be fixed in tangible media of expression such as hard copy, electronic files, videos, or audio recordings. In copyright law, originality is not difficult to establish; any modicum of originality suffices. For example, question items on examinations are original works of authorship for copyright law purposes. Important to the concept of “fixed,” the act defines “medium of expression” broadly to include expression made with the aid of a machine or device.

Provisions of the Copyright Act

Works prepared by students, staff, or faculty at colleges and universities on computers or word processors are not protected until they are saved as files on computers or disks or printed in hard copy. In higher educational settings, speeches and lectures given by instructors are not generally protected under copyright law, because they are not typically fixed in a tangible medium. Speakers' notes, however, either in hard copy or saved on computers, are copyrightable as items in their own rights. Further, speeches and lectures themselves become protected by law if they are original and recorded verbatim under speakers' authority. These recordings may be more regular today with the prevalence of online teaching and distance education.

Copyrightable works created on or after January 1, 1978, the effective date of the Copyright Act of 1976, are protected from the time they are fixed in tangible media of expression until 70 years after the death of their authors/creators. If the works have corporate authorship, copyrights last 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter. The duration of copyright for works created before 1978 is dependent on several factors (Gasaway, 2003). Once copyright terms expire, works go into the public domain, and advance permission to use them is no longer necessary.

The Copyright Act protects literary, musical, dramatic, choreographic, pictorial, sculptural, and architectural works as well as motion pictures and sound recordings. Each copyrightable work has several “copyrights,” including exclusive rights to make copies of the works, distribute them, and perform or display the works publicly.

Prelude

Academic works carry valuable ideas and information that is aimed at educating the public. Readers of such resources enjoy great intellectual benefits, and if inspired, contribute to further development of particular concepts. Copyright laws in some way limit the dissemination of such information. Charging reader a price for accessing the piece of information, they exclude a percentage of the population from acquiring such data. It is reasonable to believe that eliminating such restriction would bring significant social benefits to the public, making more valuable information widely accessible. However that theory might seem absolutely consistent and justified, the actual execution requires more careful analysis. The current state of affairs still requires copyright laws to protect many information and although the absence of such laws may bring many benefits, the social regulations following such ...