When is something a work for hire? (weekly widget)
A work is “made for hire,” so that the employer owns the copyright from the beginning, if the work was created “by an employee within the scope of his or her employment” or if a work by an independent contractor is subject to an express agreement that it will be work for hire and it falls into one of nine broad categories listed in the Copyright Act. Many works created by college and university faculty would seem to be works for hire under the first prong of this definition, but there is a long judicial tradition of excluding these works from the category. Many universities have adopted policies to address when a faculty work is or is not a work made for hire.
Policy on Electronic Course Content
For help deciding whether course content in Blackboard or some other digital form is fair use or requires copyright permission, consult this policy document adopted by the Academic Council in February 2008.
Search the Scholarly Communications Blog
Categories
- Authors' Rights
- Copyright in the Classroom
- Copyright Information Notes
- Copyright Issues and Legislation
- Data
- Digital Rights Management
- Fair Use
- international IP
- Libraries
- Licensing
- Open Access and Institutional Repositories
- Open Access topics
- Public Domain
- Scholarly Publishing
- Technologies
- Traditional Knowledge
- Uncategorized
- User Generated Content
Archives
Recent Comments
- ATG Article of the Week: Fair Use Ferment | Against-the-Grain.com on Fair Use ferment
- Entrance Exam on Fair Use ferment
- John E. Miller on Fair Use ferment
- La comunità scientifica si ribella contro lo strapotere delle case editrici | Enrica Garzilli | Il Fatto Quotidiano on Why boycott Elsevier?
- russ on Fair Use ferment
Recommended Readings- A State Law Approach to Preserving Fair Use in Academic Libraries"By David R. Hansen" Posted by klsmith to myblog contracts copyright on Thu Sep 15 2011 […]
- Canada's Orphan Works Regime: Unlocatable Copyright Owners and the Copyright Board"Article by Jeremy De Beers and Mario Bouchard form the Oxford University Commonwealth Law Journal, Winter 2010" Posted by klsmith to myblog "orphan works" Canada copyright on Thu Sep 15 2011 […]
- Print or Perish: Authors' attitudes towards electronic-only publication of law journals"Duke Law Librarian Dick Danner and colleagues report on a study about how authors feel if their articles (in law journals) were no longer available on paper" Posted by klsmith to digital publication myblog on Mon Aug 08 2011 […]
- Copyright in the Age of YouTube | ABA Journal - Law News Now"Details how DMCA is rapidly become out-of-date as digital technology changes." Posted by klsmith to myblog digital technology copyright on Thu Jan 29 2009 […]
- A State Law Approach to Preserving Fair Use in Academic Libraries


As Duke University’s first Scholarly Communications Officer, Kevin Smith’s principal role is to teach and advise faculty, administrators and students about copyright, intellectual property licensing and scholarly publishing.
RSS Feed 






