Licensing

For works created after 1978, section 203 of the Copyright Act provides that the creator (or "author" in copyright terminology) of a work may terminate a transfer, exclusive, or non-exclusive license of any or all rights under copyright for that work during the five-year period:

• starting at the end of thirty-five years from execution of the grant;

• for a grant that covers the right of publication of a work, the five-year period beginning at the earlier of:
  • the end of thirty-five years from the date of publication of the work; or
  • the end of forty years from the date of execution of the grant.

To terminate a grant or license, you must serve notice of termination upon the grantee (the recipient of the transfer or license) or the grantee's successor in title (meaning the person or entity to whom the original grantee transfered his interest). The notice must be in writing and state the date of termination, which must fall within the five-year period outlined immediately above. You are required to serve the notice not less than two, nor more than ten, years before the termination date designated in the notice. Additionally, you need to file a copy of the notice with the Copyright Office prior to the termination date.   read more »

Transfers and Exclusive Licenses

A transfer or exclusive license of any or all rights under copyright must be in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed (or the owner's duly authorized agent). The writing should describe the nature of the rights conveyed. As a copyright owner, you should specifically carve out any rights that you wish to retain in the work, especially with regard to exploitation of the work in new media or technological formats developed in the future. 17 U.S.C. Sec. 204(a).

The U.S. Copyright Office does not have any special forms for the contract through which you transfer right(s). Copyright law provides for the recordation of transfers of copyright ownership in the Copyright Office. Although recordation is not required to make a valid transfer between the parties, it provides certain legal advantages, and may be required to validate the transfer as against third parties. For more information on recordation of transfers and other documents related to copyright, see the Copyright Office's Circular 12: Recordation of Transfers and Other Documents.   read more »

Below are three models or approaches to transferring or licensing your work that are relatively straightforward and therefore can be accomplished without the assistance of a lawyer. One caveat is that the first approach, the "all rights reserved" model, could be used in conjunction with sophisticated transfer/licensing transactions on a case-by-case basis, in which case the assistance of a lawyer would be more indispensable.

"All Rights Reserved" Model

You might decide that, although you want to display your work online and/or distribute it to your users, you do not want to grant to those users any rights beyond those necessary for their personal consumption of your work. In that case, you could adopt the "all rights reserved" model. This approach is not really a transfer or a license -- rather it is an effort to limit the scope of the implied license you give to your users when you post and/or distribute your work.

All you need to do is affix the standard copyright notice to each page of your website (and/or to any other materials you distribute) and add a short statement indicating that you intend to reserve all your rights. For instance, you may affix to each page of your website the following statement: "Copyright © [Year], [your name or name of applicable entity], all rights reserved." If you are distributing a podcast, you might want to include a short statement at the beginning of the podcast indicating that you "reserve all rights" in it. As a general matter, you may want to alter the rights reservation statement on your site to indicate that you are reserving rights only in the content specifically created by you.

Displaying an "all rights reserved" notice will not prevent fair use of your work.   read more »

If you are the copyright owner of a work, you can transfer, or license others to exercise, some or all of the rights listed in Section 106 of the Copyright Act. These include:

1. the right to reproduce (i.e., make copies of) the work;
2. the right to make derivative works based upon the copyrighted work (this basically means the right to make adaptations of the work);
3. the right to distribute the work;
4. the right to display the work;
5. the right to perform the work; and
6. the right to perform the work through digital audio transmission (in case of sound recordings).

For instance, say that you've uploaded an e-book that you have written to your website in PDF format. You could grant a user of your website permission to download and make copies of this book, but prohibit him or her from distributing your e-book to other people.

You can further limit the rights granted based on type of media, geographical effect, and time (among other possible criteria). Three illustrative examples follow.   read more »

A transfer of copyright is a conveyance of ownership, much like the sale of personal property. When you transfer your entire interest in a copyrighted work, or one or more of your exclusive rights under copyright, you give up all claim to the right(s) you convey (except as explained in the Termination of a Transfer or a License section). The recipient of the transfered right(s) may:

• exercise the right or rights transfered;

• authorize others to exercise the right or rights transfered via another transfer or via license; and

• sue for copyright infringement of the transferred right(s).

A license is a grant of permission to exercise your rights under copyright. In copyright terminology, there are "non-exclusive" and "exclusive" licenses. When you give someone a non-exclusive license, you give the licensee permission to exercise the right in question, but you also reserve the right to continue exercising it yourself and to authorize others to do so. When you give someone an exclusive license, you promise that the licensee and only the licensee may exercise the right. This means that when you grant an exclusive license, even you may not exercise the granted right, nor may you authorize anyone else to do so.

Copyright law treats an exclusive license like a transfer. Therefore, the recipient of an exclusive license to a right or right(s) may:   read more »

A broad array of creative, expressive media are subject to copyright protection, including literature, photographs, music compositions and recordings, films, paintings and sculptures, and news articles – any “original work of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression.” 17 U.S.C. § 102. For more information on copyright creation and ownership see the Copyright Ownership section of this legal guide.

If you are the copyright owner of a work (and you likely will be if you created the work), such as an article, a blog post, a photograph, or a video, you can authorize others to use it. You can do this by transferring to the person or entity that wants to use your work any or all of your rights as a copyright owner, or any subdivision of those rights. Alternatively, you can license any or all of those rights (or any subdivision of them) to that person or entity.   read more »