4.2 Copyright responsibilities

Given the ease with which online material can be reused, whether it belongs to you or someone else, it is very important to be aware of the implications for copyright owners and users.

Figure 5 Using material

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This is a collage of images. Top left is an image of the smiling and laughing faces of the theatre. To right is a strip of film. Bottom left is film canisters and bottom left is a stack of CDs.

Figure 5 Using material

Unless assigned to another party by contract (e.g. employment or publisher) the copyright holder is usually the person who has created (authored) an original work. This might be a picture, photograph, song, text or a piece of software. As long as it is saved in a fixed form, they control the rights (intellectual property rights IPRs) to that content. As you’ve already discovered, the author’s rights are automatic from the time the work is created.

To make it clear that work is owned by an individual, it is often a good idea to record ownership of the work itself. You can do this using the copyright symbol, ©, on the work itself, for example ‘© Jane Bloggs (date)’. If you are the copyright holder, you should consider in what ways you would allow use of your work without asking for your permission. You can also add this to your work using Creative Commons licences for example. It is a good idea to add on your contact details so that users can contact you to request permission which is not covered.