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Category: Copyright Education (page 1 of 6)

Fair Use Week 2025: Fair Use and Artificial Intelligence

February 24, 2025 / / Comments Off on Fair Use Week 2025: Fair Use and Artificial Intelligence

This week is Fair Use Week, an annual celebration of the legal doctrine of fair use, which plays an essential role in teaching, education, and scholarship. This year, we are looking at the development of fair use in Generative Artificial Intelligence.

What is Fair Use?

The fair use doctrine allows for the use of copyrighted works in certain circumstances, which is determined using a four-factor test that considers the purpose of the use, the nature of the copyrighted work, the amount and substantiality used, and the effect of the use on the market for the copyrighted work. Fair use is purposely vague to avoid unnecessarily limiting the use of copyrighted materials, but this vagueness could also result in uncertainty about whether a use is a fair use or an infringement until it is challenged in court. Nowhere is that vagueness and uncertainty more prevalent than in the current climate around fair use and artificial intelligence.

The Role of Fair Use in Generative Artificial Intelligence

As the growing number of lawsuits brought against AI companies indicates (see ChatGPT Is Eating the World), there is sentiment among many copyright owners that the inclusion of copyrighted works in datasets used to train AI tools without permission constitutes infringement, as do the outputs produced by AI tools that are copies of or significantly similar to the copyrighted works. AI companies rely, in part, on fair use to defend their use of copyrighted works. As is true with any fair use case, to determine the strength of a fair use argument, courts will balance the fair use factors to see if the use is favorable. Let’s explore how each factor might apply to AI.

Factor 1: The Purpose and Character of the Use

When considering the purpose of the use, which is the first fair use factor, the potential commerciality of the AI companies’ use gets weighed with their claim of transformative use. Any possibility of commercial benefit that AI companies stand to gain from using the copyrighted works will weigh against a finding of fair use. This has a significant impact on any AI tools that require a paid subscription to use. However, if companies can successfully argue that their use is transformative and adds value that is new and different than the original purpose of the copyrighted work, that will weigh in favor of fair use. The transformative use, according to AI companies, is that copyrighted works are being used as data to help AI models recognize patterns that will in turn help them generate new and unique content. A transformative use argument is also considered with the output generated by the AI tool. If the output is substantially similar to the original copyrighted work and both works share the same or highly similar purpose, the use may not be considered transformative.[1]

Factor Two: The Nature of the Copyrighted Work

The second fair use factor is the nature of the copyrighted work, which examines characteristics such as if the work is fact or fiction and is the work published or unpublished. The use of highly creative works like novels, song lyrics, etc.—which are often used to train AI tools—typically weighs against fair use.

Factor Three: The Amount and Substantiality of the Portion Used

The third factor evaluates the amount and substantiality of the copyrighted work used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole. Typically, a larger portion of a copyrighted work used, or the use of the heart of a work, weighs against fair use. However, if the use of an entire work is appropriate to accomplish a favored use, such as a use that is transformative, it may not weigh against fair use. AI companies could argue that ingesting anything less than the entirety of copyrighted works would lessen the accuracy of their AI tools and hamper their ability to achieve their transformative use in training the tool.

Factor Four: Market Effect

Under the fourth fair use factor, courts consider if the use has an effect on the market for the copyrighted work. If the value of a copyrighted work is affected by it being used to train AI tools, that would weigh against fair use, as would any situation where the use served as a market substitute for the original copyrighted work. For example, some copyright owners take advantage of the potential to license their works for monetary gain. If an AI company chooses to avoid a readily available license and use the copyrighted work without permission, they would have a direct negative effect on the value of the work. Additionally, if a generated output is a copy of or substantially similar to the copyrighted work, it could act as a substitute for the copyrighted work, again directly affecting the market.

None of the fair use factors are determinative on their own—a use that is found to be transformative does not guarantee that a court will rule in favor of fair use. There may be other factors that weigh heavily in favor of the copyright owner that will cumulatively force a ruling against fair use. All of that to say, fair use cases greatly depend on the specific facts of each unique case, making it difficult to support any generalizations that you may hear about fair use and AI.

Current AI Lawsuits

As noted above, issues of copyright infringement and fair use are currently being litigated in court. Most recently, the district court in Delaware released a new summary judgement ruling in Thomson Reuters v. Ross Intelligence, rejecting a fair use defense in the use of copyrighted works for training of an AI legal search tool. In the case, Ross Intelligence trained their legal-research search engine using Bulk Memos, which consisted of compilations of legal questions and answers incorporating Westlaw headnotes (summaries of key points of law and case holdings).[2] In considering the fair use factors, the court held that Ross’s use was not transformative; Ross was using the headnotes as AI data to create a competing legal research tool. Additionally, the court found that Ross’s legal research tool served as a market substitute for Westlaw and also noted consideration for the effect of Ross’s use on a potential market for AI training data.

Two other major cases currently making their way through the courts that are addressing fair use in the training of AI tools is The New York Times Company v. Microsoft Corporation, involving use of New York Times articles in the training of OpenAI’s large language models, and Author’s Guild v. OpenAI, involving use of works from a class of professional fiction writers for training of OpenAI’s large language models.

We have written before about The New York Times v. Microsoft case; in their complaint, The New York Times have claimed that OpenAI has unlawfully used The Times’s works, including articles, in-depth investigations, opinion pieces, reviews, and how-to guides, to train the large language models that power CoPilot (previously Bing Chat) and ChatGPT. The New York Times states these AI tools “can generate output that recites Times content verbatim, closely summarizes it, and mimic its expressive style.”[3] According to Microsoft and OpenAI, large language models can be trained to recognize patterns in data, but reproduction of entire copyrighted works is not what the models and tools are designed to produce.[4]

OpenAI and Microsoft are also facing a lawsuit by the Author’s Guild. In their amended complaint filed on December 4, 2023, the Author’s Guild states that ChatGPT produces summaries of copyrighted text used in the training of the tool and the large language model underlying the tool, and that these summaries are themselves derivative works. The Author’s Guild also asserts that the plaintiff authors have suffered harm from the use of their copyrighted works, including lost opportunities to license their works and displacement of human-authored books.

Guidance from the United States Copyright Office

In 2023, the United States Copyright Office began examining the copyright law and policy issues raised by generative artificial intelligence in the scope of creating works and using copyrighted works in the training of AI. Their comprehensive initiative included public listening sessions, registration guidance for AI generated works, and publishing a Notice of Inquiry seeking public input on copyright issues raised by artificial intelligence. Their report, Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, analyzes copyright law and policy issues raised by artificial intelligence. The report will be issued in three parts.

Part 1 of the Copyright and Artificial Intelligence report was published on July 21, 2024 and addressed the topic of digital replicas. Part 2 of the report, published in January 2025, focuses on the copyrightability of outputs created using generative AI. The report states that existing principles of copyright law are flexible enough to apply to this new technology, as they have applied to technological innovations in the past. The report also concludes that the outputs of generative AI can be protected by copyright only where a human author has determined sufficient expressive elements. This can include situations where a human-authored work is perceptible in an AI output, or a human makes creative arrangements or modifications of the output, but not the mere provision of prompts.  The report confirms that the use of AI to assist in the process of creation or the inclusion of AI-generated material in a larger human-generated work does not bar copyrightability. It also finds that the case has not been made for changes to existing law to provide additional protection for AI-generated outputs.

Emerging Industry Solutions

As courts continue to work through these copyright issues and the U.S. Copyright Office completes their research and guidance, some have turned to licensing deals to facilitate AI training needs. Approaches have included opt-in models, such as the one offered by Cambridge University Press, that allow authors to opt-in to future licensing agreements with generative AI providers. Some opt-in models also offer payment to the author. The recent deal between Microsoft and HarperCollins, for example, allows authors to opt-in to the AI training program with a payment of $5,000 per title, with half of that amount going to the author. AI training datasets may also avoid copyright issues by limiting data to public domain works. In December of 2024, for example, Harvard announced the Institutional Data Initiative, with backing from Microsoft and OpenAI, that intends to share a dataset that includes 1 million public domain books.

What’s Next?

We await the US Copyright Office’s much anticipated third report on AI, which is set to explore “the legal implications of training AI models on copyrighted works” and hopefully provide practical guidance on the subject. Between that report and the many case rulings that may be forthcoming, hopefully the aforementioned vagueness and uncertainty will gradually transition to functional clarity on how to approach the intersection of fair use and artificial intelligence.

See the resources listed below for more information on fair use and artificial intelligence:

 

[1] In Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v Goldsmith, the U.S. Supreme Court found that the Andy Warhol Foundation’s use of Goldsmith’s photograph of Prince shared “substantially the same purpose” as the original, and their “use is of a commercial nature,” affirming the Second Circuit Court of Appeals decision that the Foundation’s use did not qualify as fair use.

[2] The court holds that while the judicial opinions from which the headnotes are derived are not copyrightable, the headnotes “can introduce creativity by distilling, synthesizing, or explaining part of an opinion, and thus be copyrightable.” Thompson Reuters Enterprise Centre GMBH and West Publishing Corp., v Ross Intelligence Inc., Case No. 1:20-cv-613-SB (D.D.C. 2025), 7, https://www.ded.uscourts.gov/sites/ded/files/opinions/20-613_5.pdf

[3] The New York Times Company v. Microsoft Corporation, et al., Case No. 1:23-cv-11195, United States District Court, Southern District of New York, https://nytco-assets.nytimes.com/2023/12/NYT_Complaint_Dec2023.pdf (Filed on Dec. 27, 2023).

[4] Allyn, Bobby. “’The New York Times’ Takes OpenAI to Court. ChatGPT’s Future Could Be on the Line.” NPR, 14 Jan. 2025, www.npr.org/2025/01/14/nx-s1-5258952/new-york-times-openai-microsoft.

By Allison Schultz (Instructional Designer & Library Liaison, Ohio State Online), Landen Stafford (Copyright Services Specialist, Copyright Services), and Maria Scheid (Head, Copyright Services)

An Exploration of Copyright Through Different Disciplines: A Final Stop, Copyright in Engineering and Instructional Design

August 26, 2024 / / Comments Off on An Exploration of Copyright Through Different Disciplines: A Final Stop, Copyright in Engineering and Instructional Design

Hi everyone, my name is Tra’Vaysha Lanae’ Green, and I am a recent graduate of The Ohio State Moritz College of Law. During my time in law school, I focused a lot of my studies on copyright and intellectual property. I am now closing out on my tenure as Copyright Review Assistant for Copyright Services at OSU. I want to extend a special thanks to my supervisor, Maria Scheid, Head of Copyright Services. This would not have been possible without your encouragement and guidance. Also, thank you to everyone who took part in these conversations and everyone reading.

Business was such an exciting stop to our exploration of copyright through different disciplines. For this series installment, I will offer a two-for-one perspective on copyright in Instructional Design and Engineering. I decided to take this approach because, in my mind, there is a building and practical application of engineering and the academic innovative powerhouse that is also engineering. They may not differ for you reading this, but work with me.

I will start with the Instructional Design aspect because it was the most different of conversations I have had. I had the opportunity to speak with Instructional Design Specialists Austin Cush and Andrew Vogel with Engineering Technology Services here at Ohio State University. Instructional designers design instructional materials and courses; they support the efforts of faculty, administration, IT, and others to achieve better student learning and teach instructors to leverage pedagogy and andragogy effectively. They also assist instructors when they run into technical or instructional challenges.

Through this role, Austin Cush and Andrew Vogel have faced many copyright issues, and it is no   surprise why. The reason is understandable, faculty want to design their classrooms to be the pinnacle of everything they need to teach students how they see fit, but that does not mean copyright is at the top of their minds when they envision their ideal classroom. Wanting to use photos, videos, and other copyrighted material is widespread. Luckily enough, Ohio State University does have licenses for specific materials. Ensure you are going through proper channels because you can get in trouble, and so can the university, if licenses aren’t followed.

Another big copyright concept to think about in this space is fair use. They informed me that fair use is a term they often hear when people want to use copyrighted material, and I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but fair use is never that easy. While use of materials for educational purposes is a favored use under the first factor of fair use (purpose and character), it is never the end of a fair use analysis.[1] It is a nuanced balancing test that must consider the purpose of your use, the nature of the copyrighted works being used, the amount of the work used, and the potential impact on markets for the work. Educational uses are not automatically fair use. So, to be safe when building your courses, consult with the Instructional Designers.

For the second stop on our exploration of Copyright in Engineering, we shift to the academic and innovative side of things. Through my conversation with Engineering Librarian Patricia Verdines, I learned a ton in this space.

First, there are so many different areas under the umbrella of engineering: computer, chemical, civil, industrial, biomedical, mechanical, electrical, and so many more. These are all very different spaces, but they all have similar copyright issues that students and faculty should be aware of.

Of course, a common theme through academia is ownership of your work. In Engineering, it is essential that you understand this. I learned that students and faculty work with many outside commercial corporations to develop and innovate, such as the Honda program. Those companies usually own the work you do through a contract you signed, so always make sure to read those and ask those questions. However, in no way is this a bad thing. Patricia Verdines informed me that it is a commonplace and a great way to balance the experience, freedom, and recognition you get as a creator in this collaborative and innovative field. These collaborations are similar to what you work on for the school, so always be aware of the Intellectual Property Policy at Ohio State as well.

As engineers, you all may want to work on your projects with your resources, which is fantastic, but you must still protect your work. Patricia Verdines, Ash Faulkner, and Florian Diekmann are representatives of the Patent and Trademark Resource Center (PTRC) at Ohio State University. Students, staff, faculty, and the general public alike can receive information and resources regarding patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets from the PTRC. So, if you’re working on creating your own code or design and are thinking of patents and trademarks, make sure you’re considering and protecting your copyright as well.

I have learned so much about the intersection of copyright in engineering and instructional design, and I haven’t even scratched the surface. If you have more questions, I highly recommend that you reach out to Austin Cush and Andrew Vogel for instructional design questions and Patricia Verdines for engineering questions. They would be a great resource to talk to. And for more copyright information, you may visit the Copyright Services website.

[1] For more information on fair use, visit the Copyright Services’ Fair Use page at https://library.osu.edu/copyright/fair-use.

 

An Exploration of Copyright Through Different Disciplines: Next Stop, Copyright in Business

August 5, 2024 / / Comments Off on An Exploration of Copyright Through Different Disciplines: Next Stop, Copyright in Business

Hi everyone, my name is Tra’Vaysha Lanae’ Green, and I am a recent graduate of The Ohio State Moritz College of Law. During my time in law school, I focused a lot of my studies on copyright and intellectual property. I am now closing out on my tenure as Copyright Review Assistant for Copyright Services at OSU. I want to extend a special thanks to my supervisor, Maria Scheid, Head of Copyright Services. This would not have been possible without your encouragement and guidance. Also, thank you to everyone who took part in these conversations and everyone reading.

On our next stop of copyright through the disciplines, we stop at the home of entrepreneurial spirit and what keeps the world spinning; business!

First, in the last blog post, I explained what copyright can protect, but this time, I want to explain what copyright can’t protect. Copyright does not protect ideas, facts, concepts, systems, or methods of doing something.[1] This sounds like the makings and aspects of business. I did not go into this part of the expedition thinking there would be much to explore with copyright and business, but I was wrong. I got the chance to talk to Business Librarian Ash Faulkner and learned that many copyright issues pop up in business.

Regarding the academic side, I learned that faculty and students should be very aware of copyrighted materials when they give presentations and build classroom materials. The Creative Commons licenses are a big topic of interest for the Business school.  Creative Commons licenses allows people to use the licensed work under the terms selected by the copyright owner, without having to negotiate for or pay a licensing fee. By default, all Creative Commons licenses require attribution to the author/creator. It is essential to know what can and can’t be used, of course, but it is also essential to know that if you can use something, you must attribute it correctly. Ash Faulkner says most questions about the copyright go towards attribution. Attribution comes in many forms and through many different means and while attribution is not a requirement under copyright law, it is an issue of academic integrity and may also be a required term of a license or other contractual agreement. So if you’re considering going the business route in school, you may wish to become familiar with Creative Commons licenses, including the Creative Commons requirement for attribution.

Another way copyright shows up in the Business school, like in medicine, is through ownership of scholarship and teaching materials. As I discussed, the work you produce through your writing compositions, PowerPoints, proposals, and so much more, has copyright. It is important to remember that you may initially believe you have that ownership. Know that your ownership of copyright may be impacted under the OSU Intellectual Property Policy. For certain things, it may not be up to you to choose whether to sign over rights in the work if you want to be published, for example, but it is still important to know what rights exist.

Now, what about the logos? What about the brands? Isn’t that important to business? Absolutely, but brands and logos can fall into the area of trademarks. Copyright and trademarks are like siblings, but they are two distinctive things. Trademarks can protect words, phrases, symbols, designs, or combination of these things that identifies goods or services.[2]

As expected but confirmed by Ash Faulkner, trademarks are the bread and butter of the business school. Now, do not get more wrong. You can have a trademark and copyright in something at the same time. Take a design logo, for instance; you can have a trademark in the distinctiveness and brand identifier. You can also have a copyright in the design of the logo itself if it has a minimum degree of creativity. So when you’re flexing your entrepreneurial spirit, remember the copyright because it shows up.

I have learned so much about the intersection of copyright in business, and I haven’t even scratched the surface. If you have more questions, I highly recommend that you reach out to Ash Faulkner. Ash would be a great resource to talk to. And for more copyright information, visit the Copyright Services website.

I look forward to sharing what I learned in the next installment, where I will see how copyright intersects with engineering.

[1] What Does Copyright Protect, U.S. Copyright Office. Available at: https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html.

[2] “What is a trademark?,” United States Patent and Trademark Office, available at https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/basics/what-trademark.

An Exploration of Copyright Through Different Disciplines: First Stop, Copyright in Health Sciences

July 15, 2024 / / Comments Off on An Exploration of Copyright Through Different Disciplines: First Stop, Copyright in Health Sciences

Hi everyone, my name is Tra’Vaysha Lanae’ Green, and I am a recent graduate of The Ohio State Moritz College of Law. During my time in law school, I focused a lot of my studies on copyright and intellectual property. I am now closing out on my tenure as Copyright Review Assistant for Copyright Services at OSU. I want to extend a special thanks to my supervisor, Maria Scheid, Head of Copyright Services. This would not have been possible without your encouragement and guidance. Also, thank you to everyone who took part in these conversations and everyone reading.

An Exploration of Copyright Through Different Disciplines

Copyright. What is that? No, actually, what is that? If you asked me, a law student, I would probably refer to Article 1 Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution and say Congress has the power “to promote the progress of science and use arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”  While this may be what copyright is, I typically hear a different answer when I ask nonlaw students that question.

When conversing with my university peers, I found that the knowledge of copyright varies significantly depending on the college that student belongs to and their major. Unsurprisingly, students in the College of Arts and Sciences knew more about copyright and how it applies to their work—especially the art students. More often than not, the art, film, dance, music, English, and theatre majors knew the exclusive rights they were afforded in their work and, importantly, what copyright issues may arise in their industries. On the flip side, my medicine, business, engineering, public affairs, and agriculture peers appeared more unaware of copyright, how it applies to their work, or what copyright issues may arise in their industry.

That scares me. A person has a copyright in a work when fixed in a tangible medium and made with minimal creativity. If that sounds like a low bar, it is. Now, there is more to that as far as you can’t have copyright in facts, but you can have it in how you present those facts.[1] Nevertheless, you likely have copyright when you write an article, design a farm layout, create software, or record yourself giving a presentation on business plans.

Equipped with my love for copyright and my passion for education, I wanted to create an information blog series highlighting how copyright and copyright-adjacent issues arise for students in health, business, and engineering. I am not promising to spot every possible copyright issue– I genuinely would not be able to do that anyway. What I do hope for is that this at least exists so that if someone is searching about “copyright in X major,” they have somewhere to start.

This is a daunting task. To ensure I am hearing from actual professionals and scholars in this area with whom I need to familiarize myself, I have acquired the help of a group of phenomenal subject matter librarians to aid me in my mission. In this series, I will be looking at copyright issues that show up in Medicine and Health Sciences, Business, and Engineering.

Copyright in Health Sciences

For my first exploration, I picked the College of Medicine and other health sciences. For this one, I talked with Katherine Hoffman and Stephanie Schulte from the Health Sciences Library. Through conversation, I learned about some issues they see regarding copyright in their areas. The two significant areas of copyright they get questioned about are accessing and utilizing copyrighted work and questions about licensing and ownership of works.

Accessing and utilizing copyrighted workpieces is a universal copyright issue. In medicine and health sciences, making a copy of a work for handouts, excerpts of books, and more may be unauthorized. These unauthorized copies infringe on someone else’s copyright and could lead to trouble in your class or workplace if discovered. Stephanie Schulte let me know that the topic of fair use comes up a lot in the discussions of unauthorized access, and while that can be the case, fair use is a nuanced balancing test that must be done in every case, and it may not get you off the hook.[2] Library licensed resources and openly licensed materials may provide options for access,[3] but the case-by-case determination of fair use may still be an issue to be aware of.

Another significant copyright issue that arises is the issue of licensing, and I can understand why. Licensing is a doozy. Whether licensing to use someone else’s work or licensing your work, I learned some important things students of medicine and health science should be aware of. First, there should be a licensing agreement that is preferably in writing. You must know all of the terms of your agreement. Language matters. Is this license transferable or nontransferable? Is it perpetual or not? Exclusive or nonexclusive? Know what you are and are not allowed to do with someone else’s work, and know what you want or do not want someone to do with your work. Licensing can be a lucrative business for yourself, your university, or your place of employment, and licensing can go beyond copyright. You can also license patented works in the form of inventions and tools you may need, so make sure you know what you are signing up for. Ohio State has a detailed Intellectual Property Policy, and I encourage everyone to know it.[4]

The last issue that I want you to keep in mind is ownership. Katherine Hoffman told me that students do not always know what ownership rights they have or do not have in their works. Remember that copyright, authorship, and ownership are not mutually exclusive. You can create a work and not have ownership or copyrights in that work. This happens when you sign away your ownership rights through a contract or license or, in some cases, under the scope of your employment. Again, know the terms of all agreements you take part in. Katherine and Stephanie helped me understand that signing away your rights is standard in the medical and health science professions, especially when publishing or receiving certain credits. So, make sure you know that. It would be unfortunate if you believe you had copyright in the work you created and try to use it in the future only to find out that you signed away those rights and are infringing on that right holder’s copyright.

I have learned so much about the intersection of copyright in medicine and the Health Sciences, and I haven’t even scratched the surface. If you have more questions, I highly recommend that you reach out to Stephanie Schulte and Katherine Hoffman. They would be a great resource to talk to. For more copyright information, visit the Copyright Services website.

I look forward to sharing what I learned in the next installment, where I will see how copyright intersects with business.

[1] What Does Copyright Protect, U.S. Copyright Office. Available at: https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html.

[2] The Fair Use Checklist from The Ohio State University Health Sciences Library can be used to work through a fair use analysis. The checklist is available at http://go.osu.edu/fairusechecklist. Adapted from “The Fair Use Checklist ,” Kenneth D. Crews and Dwayne K. Buttler and from “Thinking Through Fair Use ,” the University of Minnesota.

[3] Find Research and Education support from the Health Sciences Library at https://hsl.osu.edu/dept/research-education.

[4] The Ohio State University Intellectual Property Policy (Issued 05/03/1985, Revised 04/22/2024), available at https://policies.osu.edu/assets/policies/IP-Policy.pdf.

Public Domain Christmas Songs (Part II)

December 11, 2020 / / Comments Off on Public Domain Christmas Songs (Part II)

A few years ago, we shared a blog post detailing some of the most popular Christmas songs that could be found in the public domain. These songs, many dating back to the 1700s and 1800s, are free to share, reproduce, or perform with no permissions or licensing needed.

Which Christmas songs entered the public domain this year?

Following the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, songs that were first registered or published in the United States before January 1, 1978 could receive a maximum term of protection of 95 years from the date of publication. This means that Christmas songs first registered or published in the United States in 1924 received a maximum term of protection through 2019 (1924+95 years). With copyright term running to the end of the calendar year, works first published in the U.S. entered the public domain in the U.S. on January 1st of this year.

In order to receive the maximum term of protection, a song first published in 1924 would require inclusion of a valid copyright notice and renewal of the copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office. That renewal had to have been made in the 28th year following publication. Failure to include a notice or file timely renewal would mean that the song would at that point enter the public domain. Copyright formalities have changed over time, but the charts found in Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States can help you navigate the requirements.

How do you check to see if a song was renewed? Copyright renewals and registrations were recorded in the Catalog of Copyright Entries (CCE). These records have been scanned and made available by a number of organizations—one great resource is the Online Books Page through the University of Pennsylvania Libraries. More recent copyright records (1978 to present) can be searched online through the Copyright Office’s copyright catalog.

To search renewals for songs first published in the United States in 1924, we searched records spanning from 1951-1952. Below are some just some of the songs that were published in 1924 and renewed in their 28th year. After enjoying a term of copyright protection of 95 years, these works entered the public domain this year:

  • CHRISTMAS FANTASIA; for string orchestra & piano by Benoit Hollander. © 9Dec24, E599510. R87828, 13Dec51, Grace Adeline Hollander (W)
  • CHRISTMAS NIGHT, from Earl Carroll vanities; w & m Earl Carroll. 2d ed. © 10Oct24, E600428. R86228, 13Nov51, Jesse I. Schuyler (E)
  • COWBOY’S CHRISTMAS; for violin & piano by Jaromir Weinberger, rev. Otakar Sevcik. © 18Feb24, E592070. R89247, 19Jan52, Jaromir Weinberger (A)
  • SAVOY CHRISTMAS MEDLEY; for piano, arr. Debroy Somers. © 8Dec24; E599194-599195. R89904-89905; 28Jan52; Debroy Somers (A)
  • CHRISTMAS BELLS; anthem, w & m Cecil Forsyth; mixed voices. © 10Oct24, E602740. R85214, 24Oct51, P. David Forsyth, Walters B. Forsyth & Hugh Forsyth (NK)
  • THE NEW BORN KING; Christmas anthem, W. C. Krensch, M Charles L. Espoir, arr. Hartley Moore; mixed voices. © on arr., 22Sep24, E602736. R86918, 26Nov51, Oliver Ditson Co. (PWH)
  • SANTA CLAUS BLUES; w & m Charley Straight & Gus Kahn. © 1Nov24, E602777. R91975, 19Mar52, Grace LeBoy Kahn (W)

Santa Claus Blues record from Internet Archive

Arrangements and Recordings

As you can see above, it is possible to register and renew a copyright in a new arrangement, revision, or edition of a work. This copyright extends only to the new creative expression included in the arrangement, revision, or new edition. A new arrangement of a public domain song does not alter or extent the public domain status of the underlying work.

This blog post has discussed public domain musical compositions. What about recordings that are made of the songs? Are 1924 recordings also in the public domain? The term of protection for sound recordings is measured differently, meaning it is possible for a composition to be in the public domain while a recording of that composition that is made and released in the same year remains protected by copyright. Our blog post, “When does music enter the public domain in the United States?” provides more information on this topic.

Coming 2021

New works enter the public domain every year on January 1st. Check out the Public Domain Day Project to learn how Copyright Services and University Libraries are celebrating Public Domain Day 2021.

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By Allison DeVito (ODEE Library Services Liaison, Office of Distance Education and eLearning) and Maria Scheid (Copyright Services Specialist at Copyright Services, The Ohio State University Libraries)

Public Domain Day 2019 Recap

December 31, 2019 / / Comments Off on Public Domain Day 2019 Recap

Public Domain Day 2019 graphic

2019 began with a celebration; after a 20-year pause, works published in the United States in 1923 entered the public domain. In recognition of this occasion, Ohio State University Libraries began the Public Domain Day project, collaborating with partners across the university to bring attention to works whose term of copyright protection has expired and to encourage creative uses of public domain materials in the University Libraries’ collections.

In January of this year, the Public Domain Day project website was launched to share more information about the project and the partnerships involved. With a focus on public domain music, the project website highlighted a selection of musical scores that we believe entered the public domain in the U.S. in 2019.

Additionally, project partners worked together to provide a number of events throughout the year. Here is a recap of all the events for Public Domain Day 2019:

  • January 25, 2019: Public Domain Day Information Session. Copyright Services offered an information session with an overview of the ways a work may enter the public domain in the United States and how public domain materials may be used and shared to promote innovative research and creative expression. We also shared our plans for celebration at OSU with the Public Domain Day Project.
  • March 1, 2019: Public Domain Chamber Music and Chat. Two compositions, published in 1923, were the focus for this concert event. Composer Paul Hindemith’s Cello Sonata op. 25 no. 3 and String Quartet op. 22 were performed by OSU School of Music Professor Mark Rudoff and the Janus Quartet. The event included opening remarks on the significant public domain developments in 2019 and additional background on the two pieces performed. With the assistance of Professor Beth Black, Undergraduate Engagement Librarian for University Libraries, this event was also offered as a session for the Second-Year Transformational Experience Program (STEP).
  • April 11, 2019: OSU Symphonic Band concert featuring ‘McKinley’s Own’ march by Karl King. The OSU Symphonic Band, conducted by OSU School of Music professor Scott A. Jones, performed a new edition of composer Karl L. King’s march McKinley’s Own. Video of the performance is available online, with audio of the performance available on the Public Domain Day project website. The new edition, edited by Professor Alan Green and arranged by Scott A. Jones and Craig Levesque, was dedicated to the public domain through the CC0 waiver. The score and parts (imposed) are made available on the Public Domain Day project website.
  • November 4, 2019: Using Public Domain Materials in Your Teaching and Research. This workshop, offered by Copyright Services, provided participants with information and resources for identifying, finding, and using public domain text, images, and other creative works.
  • November 6, 2019: Safety Last! Film screening with the Wexner Center for the Arts. Safety Last!, released in 1923, is a silent film starring Harold Lloyd. This screening at the Wexner Center for the Arts featured a 1989 soundtrack composed by Carl Davis, with orchestration based on the line-up of the Paul Whiteman Orchestra of the 1920s and inspired by popular music of that era. The Ohio State University Libraries’ Silent Film Sheet Music Collection offers a number of musical scores that are arranged for the typical film theatre orchestras of the early 20th century. Three 1923 scores from that collection have been digitized and made available on the Public Domain Day project website. Scores from 1923 include:
    • Clark, C. Frederick, Midnight (Novelty Fox Trot)
    • Coots, J. Fred and Dave Ringle (arr. Ted Eastwood), Home Town Blues
    • Savino, Domenico, Misterioso all Valse (Dramatic Suspense)

On January 1, 2020, we will once again celebrate Public Domain Day. In 2020, we will welcome into the public domain works published in the United States in 1924. To keep up to date on new events offered in 2020 and to read more about the project, visit the Public Domain Day project website at go.osu.edu/Public DomainDay .

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By Maria Scheid, Copyright Services Coordinator at Copyright Services, The Ohio State University Libraries

The Wait is Over! Public Domain Day 2019

January 1, 2019 / / Comments Off on The Wait is Over! Public Domain Day 2019

What do F. Scott Fitzgerald, Agatha Christie, Buster Keaton, and Jelly Roll Morton all have in common? They all have works that are entering the public domain in the U.S. today on Public Domain Day!

Today is Public Domain Day and this year’s celebration is a special one for those of us in the United States. After a 20-year pause, works published in the United States will once again be entering the public domain on a rolling basis. This year, we welcome works first registered or published in the United States in 1923.

As public domain works, these books, films, compositions, and works of art can be used without copyright restrictions. This means, for example, that instructors can make copies of literary works for their students, ensembles can create new arrangements and publicly perform musical works, and students can adapt and remix works freely into their own projects and assignments. Works in the public domain can be used to encourage and support learning, scholarship, and creative endeavors.

Why the 20-year wait?

Copyright protects many different types of creative works, including books, film, music, and art. And while the U.S. Constitution requires copyright be granted only for “limited Times,” the term of copyright protection has increased over the years. In 1998, Congress passed the Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA), which extended the term of protection for published works by an additional 20 years. For works published before 1978, this meant a term of protection of 95 years from publication date. We have now reached the point where eligible works are reaching the 95-year mark.

In addition to these published works, we will see certain unpublished works enter the public domain in the U.S. on this day; specifically, unpublished works from authors who died during 1948 and unpublished works created in 1898 for anonymous and pseudonymous authors and works made for hire, and unpublished works when the date of the author’s death is unknown.[1]

Celebrating the Public Domain at OSU

Copyright Services has collaborated with partners across OSU to share public domain works in the University Libraries collections, focusing on musical compositions published or registered in the U.S. in 1923. Tomorrow, January 2, you can visit the Public Domain Day Project website (go.osu.edu/PublicDomainDay) to learn more about the partners involved in this project, the events planned for 2019, our plans for releasing new recordings of select musical works (to be dedicated to the public domain via Creative Commons CC0), and to access music scores and audio. New works will be added throughout 2019.

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By Maria Scheid, Copyright Services Coordinator at Copyright Services, The Ohio State University Libraries

[1] Depending on the work you are dealing with, there may be some additional considerations in determining the copyright status of a work. Two great resources for thinking through copyright term and public domain are the American Library Association’s Public Domain Slider and Peter Hirtle’s Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States chart.

 

Public Domain Christmas Songs

December 21, 2018 / / Comments Off on Public Domain Christmas Songs

It’s that time of year when Christmas lights are strung and ugly sweaters are worn. When singing along with your favorite carols have you ever thought of the copyright status behind these famous songs?

Here are nine well known Christmas songs that are in the public domain.

Away in a Manger

Once rumored to have been authored by theologian Martin Luther, this carol made an early appearance in 1882. Originally titled “Luther’s Cradle Song” an anonymous author attributed the song as one Luther wrote for his children. This was dispelled for a number of reasons, and a source states the song may have instead been associated with a celebration for the 400th anniversary of Luther’s birth in 1883. There are two musical settings commonly assigned with the lyrics, one by William J. Kirkpatrick (1895) and the other by James Ramsey Murray (1887). In 1996 it was ranked as the second most popular carol in Britain. The text of the song is based on verses from Luke 2:4-7. Source: Away in a Manger

Deck the Halls

Originally titled Deck the Hall, this is a Welsh melody that dates back to the 16th century. The famous chorus ‘fa la la la la’ may date to the medieval period, while the modern English lyrics were written by Scottish musician Thomas Oliphant in 1862. The melody comes from a traditional Welsh carol “Nos Galan”, a traditional New Year’s Eve ballad. The plural of ‘hall’ was first published in 1892. Source: Deck the Halls Song History

Jingle Bells

Perhaps one of the most well-known Christmas songs, Jingle Bells was originally written for the Thanksgiving season by James Lord Pierpont in 1857. It was copyrighted as One Horse Open Sleigh, but the name was revised when it was published in 1859 as “Jingle Bells, or the One Horse Open Sleigh”. The title comes from the common practice of placing bells on a horse’s harness to avoid collisions because a horse drawn sleigh makes little noise. Jingle Bells was the first song broadcast from outer space when two astronauts on Gemini 6 performed the song aboard the spacecraft in 1965 after reporting a sleigh like object in the polar orbit. Source: 8 Things You May Not Know About “Jingle Bells”

Jingle Bells sheet music

Pierpont, J, and J Pierpont. The One Horse Open Sleigh. Oliver Ditson, Boston, monographic, 1857. Notated Music. https://www.loc.gov/item/sm1857.620520/

Silent Night

Translated from the German “Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht”, the song was composed by Franz Xaver Gruber, a schoolmaster, with lyrics by Father Joseph Mohr, in Oberndorf bei Salzburg, Austria in 1818. Bing Crosby’s version is the third bestselling single of all time, and the song was declared an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO in 2011. Silent Night, as we know it today was translated to English in 1859 by John Freeman Young, an Episcopal priest. Source: Silent Night

Up on the House Top

Written by Benjamin Hanby in 1864, Up on the House Top was considered the first Christmas song to focus primarily on Santa Claus. Sources credit Hanby’s inspiration for the song as Clement C. Moore’s 1822 poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas”, commonly known as “The Night Before Christmas”. The song was originally titled Santa Claus and meant to be performed as a sing along. According to The Christmas Carol Reader it is the second oldest secular Christmas song, only surpassed by Jingle Bells. Source: Up on the Housetop

Toyland

Written for the 1903 operetta Babes in Toyland, the whimsical song features a cast of Mother Goose characters in a magical toy filled land. The lyrics were written by Glenn MacDonough with music by Victor Herbert. The lyrics of the song have no direct ties to Christmas or the holiday season, but the spirit of the song, the happiness toys bring to children, has been associated with Santa Claus. The operetta has been adapted into 4 films of the same title, beginning in 1934 to the most recent animated version in 1997. Source: Babes in Toyland

The Twelve Days of Christmas

One of the most well-known cumulative songs, the carol describes an increasingly grand set of gifts for the twelve days of Christmas, beginning Christmas Day. The song was first published in 1780 without any music, and has a Roud Folk Song Index of 68. The standard tune it is now associated with was derived from a 1909 arrangement by Frederic Austin. In one 19th century variant, the gifts come from “my mother” rather than “my true love”.  PNC Financial annually calculates the total cost of all the gifts presented in the song, and the estimate for 2018 total comes to $39,0094.93. Source: The Twelve Days of Christmas Explained

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

The famous greeting which gives name to the song, “a merry Christmas and a happy New Year” is recorded from 18th century England. The song is a nod to the dynamic between the rich and poor, and describes townspeople parading the steps of the rich calling for figgy pudding and refusing to leave until it was delivered. The modern popularity of the song comes from a Bristol based composer Arthur Warrell, who arranged the song for the University of Bristol Madrigal singers in 1935. The very early history of the carol is unknown; it is notoriously missing from popular song books of the 18th and 19th centuries. Source: We Wish You a Merry Christmas

O Christmas Tree

Also known as O Tannenbaum, O Christmas Tree is a German Christmas song; a tannenbaum is the German word for a fir tree. The modern lyrics were written in 1824, and instead of referring to Christmas, reference the evergreen as a symbol of constancy and faithfulness. The custom of Christmas trees developed throughout the 19th century, and the song became associated with the holiday. The song was famously used in the 1965 television special A Charlie Brown Christmas. Source: O Christmas Tree: Lyrics and Chords

 

Copyrighted Christmas Songs

Unfortunately the songs listed below are still under copyright protection so we’ll have to wait a little while before they enter the public domain.

Winter Wonderland
Written: 1934
Public Domain: 2030

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
Written: 1939
Public Domain: 2035

Frosty the Snowman
Written: 1950
Public Domain: 2046

Jingle Bell Rock
Written: 1957
Public Domain: 2053

Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree
Written: 1958
Public Domain: 2054

Little Saint Nick
Written: 1963
Public Domain: 2059

Holly Jolly Christmas
Written: 1964
Public Domain: 2060

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By Allison DeVito, Copyright Services Specialist at Copyright Services, The Ohio State University Libraries

 

 

 

Back to the Basics with Copyright Law

August 3, 2018 / / Comments Off on Back to the Basics with Copyright Law

Today is the 9th anniversary of the Copyright Corner blog, with the first post (Why Copyright Education?) published back in August of 2009. Since then, we’ve had posts covering a wide-range of issues; from copyright protection for patterns and DMCA exemptions to copyright issues faced by units across OSU Libraries and tips on finding a copyright owner. For this post, we are going back to the basics and looking at some of the fundamentals of copyright law in the United States.

Why do we have copyright?

There are a number of theories on the purpose of copyright. Countries may have laws that encompass one or more of these theories.

One common theory for the purpose of copyright is utilitarian. Under this theory, we provide authors a copyright in the works they create as an incentive to create and disseminate new works. The law is organized to promote the collective welfare of society, but recognizes that unless creators can recoup the costs involved in the creation and dissemination of their works, they won’t produce the works. Copyright gives to authors and creators exclusive rights in the works they create, which in turn allows them to suppress competition for a limited time.

Much of U.S. copyright law seems to align with this theory, with Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the U.S. Constitution granting Congress the power “to Promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Rights to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”

Another theory for the purpose of copyright is the author’s rights theory. Under this theory, the primary purpose of copyright is to recognize and protect the emotional bond between artists and their creations, acknowledging creative works as manifestations and extensions of their author’s personality. Countries whose laws are influenced by this theory may provide moral rights for authors and creators that exist separately from economic rights.

What exactly is copyright and how do you get it?

Copyright is a legal right that allows creators and authors the ability to control certain uses of their works. The owner of a copyright has a number of exclusive rights that are provided under the law (these rights are discussed below).

In the U.S., copyright protects original works of authorship that are fixed in a tangible medium of expression and copyright exists at the moment of fixation. In other words, copyright protection is automatic.

Including a copyright notice (e.g., © 2018 The Ohio State University) is optional for works created today but there can be some advantages to including a notice on your copyrighted work. And registration with the U.S. Copyright Office? That’s also an optional step that provides some important benefits to copyright holders.

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Public Domain Day 2018

January 1, 2018 / / Comments Off on Public Domain Day 2018

It is the beginning of another year, which means the welcoming of new works into the public domain for Public Domain Day 2018. Today, countries around the world will expand their public domain with creative works whose term of copyright protection ended in 2017. As public domain works, these books, films, compositions, and works of art can be copied, shared, and remixed without copyright restrictions.

We have written before about the extension of the term of copyright protection under U.S. law and its impact on our public domain (we’ve also written about the ability of copyright owners to bypass this lengthy wait and dedicate their works to the public domain via Creative Commons CC0). As a result of this extension of copyright and Congress’s decision to apply the extension of copyright protection retroactively to existing works, those of us in the United States will need to wait until January 1, 2019 before we see new published works enter the public domain.

For now, the U.S. public domain will add a much smaller group of works—unpublished works whose author died in 1947 and were not registered with the U.S. Copyright Office prior to 1978.

For an interesting read on some of the published works that are entering the public domain in countries around the world, head over to The Public Domain Review for their picks for the Class of 2018.

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By Maria Scheid, Copyright Services Specialist at Copyright Services, The Ohio State University Libraries

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