Copyright & Fair Use
Copyright & Fair Use
Austin Community College (ACC) has an expectation of respect for intellectual property and requires ACC faculty, staff, and students to comply with federal law regarding the use of copyright-protected materials. Copyright infringement is defined as exercising exclusive rights granted to the copyright owner, without permission or legal authority, under Section 106 of the Copyright Act (Title 17 of the United States Code). These rights include the right to reproduce or distribute copyrighted materials or downloading/uploading substantial parts of a copyrighted work without authority. Questions about copyright may be emailed to ACC’s Copyright Officer, Courtney Mlinar, at courtney.mlinar@austincc.edu.
The College has two administrative rules associated with copyright compliance:
The objective of this policy is to encourage the production of copyrightable material (“Works”) that advance Austin Community College’s scholarly, academic, and public service missions and that contribute to the professional stature of those involved in the creation of the Works.
While the College will not assert its ownership interest in scholarly and academic Works created by members of the faculty who use generally available College resources, the College does assert ownership of copyrightable Work where significant College resources are utilized in the creation of the Work or in other circumstances as required pursuant to an agreement with a third party or where the Work is a work made for hire. Generally available resources include one’s office, office computer, telephone (excluding long-distance charges), library and other resources that may be included in the accompanying Copyright Ownership Agreement Form.
ACC creators are encouraged to add a Creative Commons (CC) license to any ACC content distributed to the larger public via the college’s website, with the exception of works that are subject to an intellectual property agreement between the ACC creator and the College, such as works of compelling institutional interest, provided that doing so does not violate the terms of any existing College agreements or government regulations.
The College supports enforcement of copyright law for the protection of its employees as both creators and users of copyright protected works. The College requires that ACC faculty, staff and students comply with federal law regarding the use of copyright-protected materials.
In addition, in the spirit of promoting “the progress of science and the useful arts,” the college supports Fair Use as defined in Section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law for such purposes as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching scholarship or research and reproduction of copyrighted materials (including multiple copies for classroom or library use as outlined in Circ 21), for educational purposes as outlined in the federal Copyright Law (PL94-553).
