Copyright is a form of legal protection automatically provided to the authors of “original works of authorship,” including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works. The Copyright Basics circular created by the United States Copyright Office states:

"Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U. S. Code) to the authors of 'original works of authorship,' including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works...In addition, certain authors of works of visual art have the rights of attribution and integrity as described in section 106A of the 1976 Copyright Act...It is illegal for anyone to violate any of the rights provided by the copyright law to the owner of copyright.;"

U.S. copyright law generally gives the author/creator or owner of an original creative work an exclusive right to:

➜ Reproduce (copy) or distribute the original work to the public (e.g., create and sell copies of a film)

➜ Create new works based upon the original work (e.g., make a movie based on a book)

➜ Perform or display the work publicly (e.g., perform a play)

Violation of one of these rights is called copyright infringement.

CoxHealth respects the intellectual property of others and will follow U.S. copyright law to ensure appropriate permissions are granted before using copyrighted materials. The complete CoxHealth policy can be viewed here.

Many times a document will contain a statement regarding copyright or an image will have a watermark from the owner, but not always. Copyright should ALWAYS be assumed.

Likely, no. The most common copyright violations we see are images and documents taken off the internet.

By far the majority of sites on the internet which purport to offer “free,” “royalty free,” “public domain,” or “creative commons” images, are not doing so in legal ways. If you can even find them, and you dig into the terms of use of these pages, you’ll find that they put the responsibility back on the person uploading the image. Basically, the uploader has to say they own the image. The thing is, there’s ZERO verification and ZERO moderation on these sites. Many are hosted in countries who don’t recognize American copyright law. Some are even nefarious with injected viruses and spyware in the code of the images they host. The net result is thousands of unlawful sites, with many millions of stolen images, being posted all over the internet, and malware infesting computers globally.

You must have written permission from and follow all requirements set by the copyright holder.

Likely, no. Microsoft Office utilizes Bing image search to pull pictures off the internet. You must have written permission from and follow all requirements set by the copyright holder.

Likely, no. There are very few free or public domain sites on the web with legitimate and legal content. The burden of proof is on you as a user and CoxHealth as your employer, not on the site to ensure the content is used legally. Most sites get around their responsibility by adding clauses to their terms of service which exempt them from litigation by making the user who's uploading the image sign a waiver stating they are the copyright owner. Users are then intentionally not tracked, making it nearly impossible for the site or end users to source and verify legal ownership. Legitimate sites will have very clear and easy to find instructions as to what rights the artist grants users as well as any licensing requirements which accompany a given image. These must be followed and you must be able to point us directly to this source for verification upon request.

Yes, but if you do not include a written release from the copyright owner or proper attribution affixed, it will delay your request.

In most cases, you must acquire one.

There are narrow exceptions to this rule, such as 'fair use.'

The following twelve-minute Crash Course video helps clarify copyright these exceptions...

Fair use is a legal doctrine that promotes freedom of expression by permitting the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances. Section 107 of the Copyright Act provides the statutory framework for determining whether something is a fair use and identifies certain types of uses such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research as examples of activities that may qualify as fair use. The educational exception within fair use applies STRICTLY to use by libraries and schools. Any use of these items in the course of CoxHealth business, including staff, patient and/or community education, is commercial use and requires permission from the copyright holder. The only CoxHealth departments where the educational fair use exception might apply are CoxCollege, CoxHealth School of Diagnostic Imaging and the CoxHealth Library.

By far the majority of examples at CoxHelath do not fall within the copyright law's definition of 'educational use.' The educational exception within fair use applies STRICTLY to use by libraries and schools. Any use of these items in the course of CoxHealth business, including staff, patient and/or community education, is commercial use and requires permission from the copyright holder. The only CoxHealth departments where the educational fair use exception might apply are CoxCollege, CoxHealth School of Diagnostic Imaging and the CoxHealth Library.

Likely, no. The booklet Questions & Answers on Copyright for the Campus Community, which is a collaboration between the Association of American Publishers, Association of American University Presses, Copyright Clearance Center, National Association of College Stores and the Software & Information Industry Association, is geared mainly at instructors fair use of copyright protected works in the classroom. There's a ton of information within it, but the part we'd refer you to states:

"The Michigan Document Services (MDS) case in 1996 was a lawsuit for copyright infringement against Michigan Document Services, Inc., by three publishers including Princeton University Press. The publishers challenged MDS's production of coursepacks containing excerpts of copyrighted works without permission. The Sixth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a lower-court ruling that this educational use of illegally copyrighted materials was not fair use."

Additionally, the Agreement on Guidelines for Classroom Copying in Not-For-Profit Educational Institutions with respect to books and periodicals section of Circular 21 from the U.S. Copyright Office states:

"There shall be no copying of or from works intended to be consumable in the course of study or of teaching. These include workbooks, exercises, standardized tests and test booklets and answer sheets and like consumable material."

As for students:

• Any use of any given image (without the express written permission of the artist) should be for no more than one course at one school.
• Efforts should be made by the instructor to direct students to avoid using the same source image multiple times on the same project. (e.g. Charlie, Juliette, Mike and Victor should be instructed to make every attempt to avoid using the same image on the same assignment.)
• To avoid plagiarism, a notice of copyright, acknowledging the author, must accompany any usage.

Even if the students follow these guidelines there may still be potential issues for CoxHealth. For instance, if the organization is displaying student’s posters on our campuses as educational material for patients and visitors, that would fall outside the copyright fair use exemption because CoxHealth is not an educational institution. Another example would be if Printing Services doesn’t have express written proof that whatever we print is properly licensed for us to produce, the physical creation of the piece by us can become a copyright violation since we’re reproducing and selling an artist’s work.

We are NOT legal experts, but even with educational fair use, there are clearly restrictions.

You will always need to be prepared to make a case to Document Management if you do not have the express written permission from each copyright holder(s) that you can share with us.

You must contact the copyright owner and request one. It is VERY important the copyright holder understands how their protected work will be used. This can be a time consuming and confusing process and it's different in nearly every instance. Many times your request will be denied. It is also common for the owner to require attribution. Every owner has the right to make whatever specific requirements they'd like on your usage. It is every CoxHealth employee's responsibility to be diligent obtain or verify this before attempting to reproduce or requesting reproduction of anything by Printing Services.

The copyright owner should tell you how and what attribution is to be affixed. It is every CoxHealth employee's responsibility to be diligent in obtaining or verifying these requirements before attempting to reproduce or requesting reproduction of anything by Printing Services.

CoxHealth policy mentions Creative Commons licenses in the context of materials which are explicitly marked in some way or the creator has given specific permission for use. The seven Creative Commons licenses for artists to choose from are:

1. CC0 - All rights granted
2. Attribution
3. Attribution - Share Alike
4. Attribution - No Derivatives
5. Attribution – Noncommercial
6. Attribution - Noncommercial - Share Alike
7. Attribution - Noncommercial – No Derivatives

By releasing an image under a Creative Commons license, the artist has just simplified their process, for themselves, of granting use permissions to the world. The image is still copyright protected. The Creative Commons license the artist chooses simply says what, if any, use is acceptable.

These are sorted from least to most restrictive. The only Creative Commons licensed images which may used by CoxHealth, in any appreciably legal way, are the ones released under CC0 and Attribution licenses. CC0 means there are zero restrictions and the image may be used by anyone for anything. Attribution means the image may be used by anyone for anything, as long as credit is given to the artist, in the way the artist requires. To learn more about each Creative Commons license, you can visit this page.

You will always need to be prepared to make a case to Document Management if you do not have the express written permission from each copyright holder(s) that you can share with us.

Yes. Refer to the How Long Copyright Protection Endures section of the Copyright Basics circular created by the United States Copyright Office for more information. Unlike copyrights, trademarks and service marks do not expire after a set term of years.

A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol, and/or design that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others. A service mark is a word, phrase, symbol, and/or design that identifies and distinguishes the source of a service rather than goods. Some examples include brand names, slogans, and logos. The term "trademark" is often used in a general sense to refer to both trademarks and service marks.

The following twelve-minute Crash Course video helps explain trademarks in greater detail...

Yes. Trademarks and service marks are intellectual property with an entire section of federal law surrounding them.

Printing Services is concerned with the requirements surrounding reproduction of all trademarks and service marks. Any inappropriate usage of trademarks or service marks will result in delays to your Printing Services order, including the CoxHealth logo and brand.

Marketing maintains a usage standard, as well as the current look and feel of the CoxHealth brand. Printing Services is an integral part of maintaining those standards and guidelines. Any inappropriate request will result in delays to your Printing Services order.

The United States Copyright Office and the United States Patent and Trademark Office are the two official resources. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has developed teachingcopyright.org, which offers several self-paced lessons. The University of Texas Libraries offers a Copyright Crash Course. There are also MANY more resources available online. All of them offer general information only.

Every situation offers its own set of challenges and consideration.

The information provided above must not be relied upon as a substitute for legal advice from a licensed attorney. Any time legal advice is necessary, you should contact CoxHealth's Corporate Integrity Department or the Legal Department and allow follow their direction.