Recommended Links

Resources at the University of Michigan

Office of the General Counsel: If you have specific legal questions or concerns, you may want to contact the Office of the General Counsel.

Technology Transfer Office: The U-M Tech Transfer is the University organization responsible for the transfer of University technology to the marketplace. Questions about patents, trademarks, and commercially exploitable copyrights should be directed to Tech Transfer.

University of Michigan Logo and Identity Guidelines: Visit this site for information about the use of University of Michigan trademarks, including the "Block M."

BAYU: Be Aware You're Uploading: BAYU is a service designed by the University of Michigan to notify users of University networks that they might be uploading, and to educate the community about peer-to-peer file sharing.

Resources at other universities

Copyright Tutorials and Presentations: EDUCAUSE, a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology, has a collection of copyright tutorials and presentations written by EDUCAUSE and its members.

Stanford Copyright and Fair Use Center: The Stanford University Libraries offer a comprehensive site that includes links to the U.S. Constitution and copyright legislation, a detailed overview of fair use, and articles from prominent copyright scholars.

Stanford Copyright Renewal Database: This database searches Library of Congress copyright renewal records for books published from 1923 to 1963. If their copyrights were not renewed, many books published in that time period have since entered the public domain.

University of California Office of Scholarly Communication: The UC system's Office of Scholarly Communication offers extensive information on issues affecting academic authors. It includes an overview of the current trends in scholarly communication, a section on negotiating publishing agreements, an interesting database tracking the vital statistics of over 3,000 major journals.

IUPUI Copyright Management Center: The copyright website at Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis includes an excellent fair use checklist to help you determine whether or not you need permission to use a copyrighted work, and apermissions guide to help you secure permission when you need it.

Cornell University Copyright Information Center: Cornell's copyright website includes a handy chart to figure out when a work enters the public domain.

NCSU Libraries TEACH Act Toolkit: This website provides a detailed introduction to the TEACH Act, which is the legislation that governs copyright rules for distance education, including online education.

More about copyright and scholarly communication

United States Copyright Office: This is the site where you can register your copyrights, renew copyrights, search copyright records, and learn more about copyright law.

NIH Public Access Policy: This website from the NIH explains the new Public Access Policy, tells researchers how to comply with the policy, and provides a detailed FAQ.

Create Change: This website is aimed at the academic community and explores scholarly communication issues in the digital realm. It was developed by the Association of Research Libraries and the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition.

SHERPA/RoMEO: The RoMEO project tracks the copyright permission policies of over 300 hundred academic journal publishers. You can use this site to identify publishers with good copyright policies, and to find a summary of permissions that are normally given as part of each publisher's copyright transfer agreement.

Tales from the Public Domain: Bound by Law: This comic book from the Center for the Study of the Public Domain is an engaging and entertaining journey through the copyright-related obstacles that face the heroine, a documentary filmmaker named Akiko. You can read the book for free online.