Copyright Basics

This guide provides information about users' rights under copyright law. It is a printable PDF version of the Rights of Users page of our Copyright Basics guide.

This guide provides answers to common questions about copyright and course websites. It is a printable PDF version of our Copyright and Course Websites guide.

This guide provides information about copyright and using video. It is a printable PDF version of our Copyright and Using Video guide.

This guide provides provides answers to common copyright questions for authors of dissertations at the University of Michigan. It is a printable version of our Copyright for Dissertations guide. It is a PDF.

This one-page PDF is a brief summary of the material covered by the Copyright Basics guide. This is the electronic version, with URLs labeled.

This one-page PDF is a brief summary of the material covered by the Copyright Basics guide. This is the printable version, with URLs visible.

This toolkit describes our effort to conduct copyright review of books at a large scale.

US copyright law does not impose liability for copyright infringement upon a library or archives or its employees for the unsupervised use of reproducing equipment located on its premises, so long as the equipment displays a notice that the making of a copy may be subject to copyright law. Our notice reminds our patrons of their responsibilities and rights. It is a PDF.

Learn about copyright concepts and considerations through our scenarios

These codes document the shared best practices of communities that rely on fair use, including fair use for online video, fair use of images for teaching, research, and study, fair use for OpenCourseWare, fair use for documentary filmmakers, fair use for the visual arts, and fair use for academic and research libraries.

The University of Texas Libraries maintain this resource on the basics of copyright.

Cornell's copyright website includes a handy chart for determining whether a work is in the public domain in the United States.

This guide, published by the Authors Alliance, explains when fair use applies to the use of sources in nonfiction works such as scholarly articles. It has been endorsed by the American Council of Learned Societies and the Association for Information Science and Technology.

The Model Publishing Contract was developed "to facilitate the publication of open access books, including accommodating new types of long-form, multimodal digital scholarship."

The Stanford University Libraries offer a comprehensive site that includes “primary case law, statutes, regulations, as well as current feeds of newly filed copyright lawsuits, pending legislation, regulations, copyright office news, scholarly articles, blog and twitter feeds from practicing attorneys and law professors.”

This database searches Library of Congress copyright renewal records for books published from 1923 to 1963.

This comic from the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School tells the story of a documentary filmmaker facing copyright-related obstacles.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation created this curriculum to help teachers educate students about copyright.

On the US Copyright Office's site, you can register your copyrights, search copyright records, and learn more about copyright law.

The UC system's Office of Scholarly Communication covers current trends in scholarly communication and has a database tracking the vital statistics of over 3,000 major journals.

This three-part series of short videos explains the licensing system for copyrighted musical works and sound recordings.

This page on the Safe Computing site from Information and Technology Services explains university copyright compliance policies.

Innovation Partnerships at the University of Michigan handles transfer of university technology to the marketplace. Questions about patents, trademarks, and commercially exploitable copyrights should be directed to Innovation Partnership. The office was formerly known as the Office of Technology Transfer.

University of Michigan Global Communications maintains this guide with information about the use of University of Michigan trademarks, including the "Block M."