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.

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[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.