This guide offers information about copyright, including fair use, so that you can make informed decisions about your work and using other people's work. UCSC faculty, staff, and students can schedule a meeting with a librarian for additional copyright support and to discuss your context. Librarians cannot give legal advice but instead work as partners in helping you understand how copyright works and what your options are.

Copyright is legal protection for certain creative works that controls who may legally copy, sell, display, perform, or adapt those works. Copyrighted works must fulfill the criteria of being “original works of authorship” and “fixed in any tangible medium of expression” (including digital). 

What Rights Do I Have as an Author?

As copyright owner, you have the exclusive right for the duration of the copyright to copy the work in whole or in part, adapt it to a different form (e.g., translate it into another language), and publicly distribute, display, or perform the work. Copyright ownership can depend on what you are creating and for whom you are creating it.

In scholarly publishing agreements, it is common for authors to assign their copyrights to publishers. In such cases, the publishers become the copyright owners. We provide guidance on publishing agreements so that you retain some of these rights. 

How Can I Use Copyrighted Works? 

We would recommend first determining the copyright status of the work that you’d like to use. Your use is highly dependent on context. If you plan to teach with the copyrighted work, review guidance on doing a fair use analysis and copyright in teaching. If you determine that your use does not fall under copyright exceptions like fair use, you will need to request permission to use it. 

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