Copyright Law - A Brief Overview

Copyright is a grant of limited exclusive control by an author of their work. The grant gives the authors control over the reproduction and dissemination of their works.

The copyright law provides a "fair use" provision that allows teachers, librarians, reviewers and others to reproduce a portion of copyrighted materials for educational and certiain other purposes without notifying or compensating the copyright owners. The law refers to such purposes as "criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research".

Publications that explain the copyright law in detail are available from the Copyright Office. Locating US copyright holders can be done at the HRC website of UT Austin.

References:

US Copyright Office

US Trademark and Patent Office (USPTO)

Handbook of Technical Writing - Alred, Brusaw, and Oliu - 6th Edition, 1999

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