Copyright can be complex and is frequently misunderstood. Below are four key facts to know about copyright.

1. Copyright is a legal right intended to “to promote the progress of science and useful arts.”

2. Copyright applies automatically when a work is fixed in a tangible form. Registration is not required. This means you should always assume a work is protected by copyright even when it doesn’t include a copyright symbol.

3. Copyright is a bundle of rights, which can be debundled, rather than a single right. This bundle includes the exclusive right to reproduce, adapt, distribute, perform, and display the work.

4. Copyright protections generally last the life of the creator plus 70 years.

Open content is proactively shared so you do not have to contact the copyright owner before modifying or reusing the work per the terms of the open license. Reusing traditional content under “all rights reserved” copyright protections requires either 1) determining that reuse of the material qualifies as a “fair use” or 2) requesting permission of the copyright owner to reuse or change the material.

Mavs Open Press Copyright Agreement

All contributors to OER published by Mavs Open Press should submit a copyright agreement noting their license of choice and granting UTA Libraries the non-exclusive rights to publish the OER. Mavs Open Press authors retain their copyright but agree to license the work under an open license, which allows others to copy, distribute, display, revise, and perform your copyrighted work. All licenses used by Mavs Open Press require downstream users to attribute you as the original content creator.

Terms of the agreement are noted below:

I grant the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) Libraries the non-exclusive rights to copy, display, perform, distribute, and publish the content I submit via this form under the Creative Commons license of my choice, to archive my submitted work in the UTA ResearchCommons, and to make the work available in any medium or format in perpetuity. I warrant that I hold the copyright to this work or have the approval of the copyright holder(s) to do so. I further warrant that to my knowledge, the work does not infringe any copyright, nor violate any proprietary rights, nor contain any libelous matter, nor invade the privacy of any person or third party. I understand that once a work is deposited in the repository, a bibliographic citation to the work will remain visible in perpetuity, even if the item is removed. I understand, as copyright owner, that I retain copyright to my work and do not give up the right to submit the work to publishers or other repositories.