Some of the content is now marked "all rights reserved." What does this mean?
How is "all rights reserved" content different from the rest of OCW content?
What if I want to download, copy, modify, reuse, remix, or redistribute materials that include "all rights reserved" content?
Can MIT OpenCourseWare help me to get permission or to determine if my intended use qualifies as "fair use?"
Why is OCW publishing material under "fair use?"
Isn't this stealing, really?
Does this mean you requested permission but were denied?
What is The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for OpenCourseWare?
Where did The OCW Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for OpenCourseWare come from?
OCW content that is marked "All rights reserved" means that someone else owns the content and controls the rights to its use. It is not licensed under the OCW Creative Commons license. We may be including this content with the permission of the copyright holder or relying on the "fair use" doctrine of U.S. copyright law. For more information about the concept of "fair use," see Copyright.gov.
If you are like most OCW users who simply read the material on our website, this new category of content does not affect you or the way you study OCW material. You may return to the class and keep learning!
BUT, if you have any plans to download, copy, modify, remix or redistribute the content to others in ANY fashion, please keep reading...
This material is governed by different terms of use from the rest of OCW content.
The vast majority of MIT OCW materials (unless marked to the contrary) are published under a Creative Commons license (CC by-nc-sa). You are free to use, copy, and redistribute these unmarked materials in original or modified form ("derivative works") in whatever way you wish so long as you give credit to MIT and to the author (attribution or "by"), you redistribute with the same Creative Commons license (share alike or "sa"), and your use is non-commercial ("nc"). See our terms of use for complete information.
Some materials on OCW come from third party sources, and are covered by our Creative Commons license. This content is marked with a credit line "Courtesy of (copyright owner). Used with permission." If you modify or redistribute such material, you must carry forward this special attribution along with meeting the other requirements noted above.
On the other hand, "All rights reserved" content is different. This content is owned by someone else, but is NOT covered by our Creative Commons license. Instead, we include it in OCW relying on the "fair use" doctrine of U.S. copyright law. You can view it for your own use, but unlike other OCW content, you do NOT automatically have the right to download, copy, modify, reuse, remix, or redistribute it.
In order for you to do any of these things, you MUST either get permission from the copyright owner or make your own determination that you can use it under the fair use doctrine. The validity of a fair use claim depends on the context of its use. You may determine that your use is also fair use, but only you and an attorney can make that evaluation. If you download, copy, modify, reuse, remix, or redistribute "all rights reserved" content without permission of the copyright owner, and if your use is found not to be "fair use," then you may be liable for copyright infringement.
No. MIT OCW cannot provide legal advice or assistance of any kind in this matter.
We are constantly striving for ways to offer richer content. We would love to have everything shareable under the uniform Creative Commons license, but some third party content simply cannot be cleared for open use, for a variety of reasons. So, instead of deleting content ("Image removed due to copyright restrictions"), which is frustrating to learners who want the most complete information possible, we provide it under fair use when we can. We feel that something, even if not fully "open," is better than nothing.
Fair use is not stealing, it's the law. It is a valued public right that is enshrined in U.S. copyright law. Copyright ownership is a limited right, and the limits – fair use among them – are as important as the ownership rights. The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for OpenCourseWare provides guidance under what limited circumstances users' rights take precedence over owners' rights, within the law.
Sometimes we did not seek permission from the copyright holder for content published under fair use. In other cases, however, permission was requested, but was denied. Courts have found that a rejected permission request can actually create a case for fair use. A rejected permission request does not mean that you necessarily give up the right to a claim of fair use.
The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for OpenCourseWare is a document that provides guidance on how fair use applies to common intellectual property situations that publishers of open courseware material confront in their work. It provides support and guidance for everyone involved in such publications so that they can make their own reasoned and informed judgments about fair use. It addresses five areas of the most common recurrent situations in which copyrighted content is used in on-line learning materials:
In January 2009, MIT OpenCourseWare embarked upon a project to explore the development of community standards among OCW producers regarding the application of fair use under U.S. copyright law to our publishing. MIT OpenCourseWare participated in the development of this document, and it is modeled on prior Codes of Best Practices for Fair Use produced by the Center for Social Media. Fair use can contribute to a richer, more complete educational resource, so it is vital to the creators and users of OCW to have a standard set of practices to guide application of fair use.
A small group of U.S. universities worked with MIT OpenCourseWare, under the guidance of Pat Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi of American University, two experts in the field of copyright law and the application of fair use, to develop a Code of Best Practices specifically tailored to courseware made available from U.S. producers under a Creative Commons license. The authors of this document, the Committee of Practitioners of OpenCourseWare, include participants from MIT, Notre Dame, Yale, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, University of Michigan, and Tufts, in consultation with staff from the Creative Commons ccLearn group. Support was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, with the additional funds from the Ford Foundation.
