Employees consume and share copyrighted materials all day long. It’s just business. However, routine content exchanges such as sharing published reports, articles and other information found on the Web, have copyright implications, which can expose companies to a greater risk of infringement. While you may know the basics of copyright, your colleagues and staff may not.

What is copyright?

In the U.S., copyright is a form of protection provided by the government to the authors of “original works of authorship, including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works.” This protection is available to both published and unpublished works in the U.S., regardless of the nationality or domicile of the author. Copyright protection exists from the time the work is created in a fixed, tangible form of expression. The copyright in the work of authorship immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work. Here is a breakdown of where U.S. copyright law protection starts and ends:

Protected by Copyright:

• Literary works (not just The Grapes of Wrath or The Tipping Point, but all works expressed in writing both in print and digital form, however formally or informally recorded)
• Computer software (considered to be literary works)
• Pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works (e.g., paintings, drawings, carvings, photographs, clothing designs, textiles)
• Architectural works (e.g., buildings themselves as well as blueprints, drawings, diagrams, and models)
• Sound recordings (e.g., songs, music, spoken word, sounds, and other recordings)
• Audiovisual works (e.g., live action movies, animation, television programs, and videogames)
• Pantomimes and choreographic works (e.g., the art of imitating or acting out situations, and the composition of dance movements and patterns, including those accompanied by music)
• Dramatic works and accompanying music (e.g., plays and musicals)

Not Protected by Copyright:

• Works that have not been fixed in a tangible medium of expression (that is, not written, recorded, or captured electronically)
• Titles, names, short phrases and slogans; familiar symbols or designs; mere variations of typographic ornamentation, lettering or coloring; mere listings of ingredients or contents
• Ideas, procedures, methods, systems, processes, concepts, principles, discoveries, or devices, as distinguished from a description, explanation, or illustration
• Works consisting entirely of information that are natural or self-evident facts, containing no original authorship, such as the white pages of telephone books, standard calendars, height and weight charts, and tape measures and rulers
• Works created by the U.S. Government
• Works for which copyright has expired; works in the public domain

Understanding the extent to which materials are copyright protected can help you minimize the risk of infringement by well-intentioned employees. Make it easy for employees to get up-to-speed by checking out our Copyright Education programs.

This blog post is also available as a PDF. Access it here.

*Much of the information in this post was drawn from content posted on the website of the U.S. Copyright Office and is based on the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. The information appears here in an edited form. For the complete, unedited text, visit: www.copyright.gov.

The post What Is (and Isn’t) Protected by Copyright? appeared first on Copyright Clearance Center.

Success is dependent on collaboration, networking, and sharing information. Unfortunately, from growing startups to established global companies, we hear all the time from organizations whose teams are not fully aware of how copyright applies to the content they rely on to accomplish their respective goals. Without knowing what permissions are needed to reuse content — and how to obtain them if needed — these teams can put their entire organization at risk of copyright infringement.

The Annual Copyright License (ACL) from CCC helps minimize an organization’s infringement risk by providing a consistent set of global reuse rights across millions of publications from thousands of rightsholders that complements existing publisher agreements, subscriptions, and other content purchases. The license also helps increase organizational efficiency by reducing time spent on verifying rights, obtaining individual permissions, and enabling the sharing of content compliantly between employees.

How Do Different Departments Use the Annual Copyright License?

Drug development is a lengthy and complex process that requires extensive collaboration among both internal and external stakeholders. Cross-functional groups within an organization — including research and development (R&D), clinical research, competitive intelligence, regulatory, marketing, and medical affairs — must work together and with external partners to advance drug compounds from discovery to approval for use in patients to physician education and promotion.

R&D

Literature review is an essential step in the research process; it provides context, informs methodology, maximizes innovation, and helps to avoid duplicative research. Researchers and investigators need to work from and share scientific literature for analysis and review as they identify new drug targets for development. This sharing of information increases efficiencies and accelerates the timeline for developing novel therapies and new indications for existing compounds.

Clinical Research

As clinical trials become more complex, contract research organizations (CROs) have become a trusted extension of the clinical research team assisting with trial design, patient recruitment, and trial management. In order for these collaborative projects to succeed, both the internal clinical research team and the CRO need to be able to share all documentation relevant to the project, including published literature.

“Certain projects require us to collaborate with project team members from different organizations, and we have to make sure to work compliantly here. It can be a very time-consuming process but with the Collaboration Amendment we can make sure that everything is legal, and collaboration can happen seamlessly.”

[Teresa Silveira, Global Scientific Information Manager at BIAL] (https://www.copyright.com/resource-library/case-studies/bial/)

Competitive Intelligence

Missed market intelligence can be extremely costly. Competitive intelligence (CI) is a key tool that can help organizations gain valuable insights into their markets, their competitors, and their customers to enable more effective decision-making and greater revenue. Valuable CI comes from collecting data from diverse sources, including competitor analysis, market research, regulatory updates, patent information, clinical trials, and published literature. With the ACL in place, these materials can be hosted on an organization’s CI site and accessed by staff to help analyze the market landscape to identify opportunities for drug development, improved product positioning, and enhanced customer satisfaction.

Legal/Regulatory Affairs

Meeting regulatory requirements for clinical trials and new drug submissions is an essential part of conducting clinical research. Medical literature is a key source of safety information about these products, as new types of adverse reactions may first come to light as published individual case reports or as part of published clinical studies. Regulatory Affairs groups need to work closely with other departments to centralize and organize the published literature that will be submitted to support a regulatory filing for a new drug or new indication. It is important that this team not only has the ability to share these documents internally but also permission to share them with appropriate government agencies as a required part of the regulatory submission package.

Marketing

To make physicians aware of new products, promotional literature is prepared for publication in journals and for use by sales representatives. Claims made in these materials must be supported by the outcomes of published clinical research and full-text copies of these supporting materials must be stored and available for reference.

Medical Affairs

One important role of the Medical Affairs team is to explain to potential healthcare prescribers the real-world applications of a drug through the dissemination of unbiased clinical and scientific information. They are responsible for communication with payors, patients, physicians, regulators, and government agencies, and frequently need to respond to unsolicited requests for information about a drug or device.

Drive Business Forward with the Annual Copyright License

A copyright compliance strategy that informs and meets the needs of employees across the enterprise sets up an organization for higher efficiency, improved collaboration, and a minimized risk of copyright infringement, ultimately helping to fuel innovation and new discoveries.

Interested in seeing real examples of how R&D teams use the Annual Copyright License and our other solutions? Check out our case studies featuring customers in life sciences, biotech, chemical, consumer goods, and more. Click here to contact us about content management and licensing solutions for your organization.

The post Utilizing the Annual Copyright License Across Your Organization appeared first on Copyright Clearance Center.

On October 30, the Biden Administration issued an Executive Order on “Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence.” According to the Administration, “[t]he Executive Order establishes new standards for Artificial Intelligence (AI) safety and security, protects Americans’ privacy, advances equity and civil rights, stands up for consumers and workers, promotes innovation and competition, advances American leadership around the world, and more.”

I share my thoughts on the Executive Order below:

There has been significant governmental activity around AI, driven especially by the G7 Hiroshima process. In reading the Executive Order (EO), I was most interested in learning the Biden Administration’s approach on three topics: (1) copyright, (2) AI accountability, and (3) AI use in education.

The Executive Order kicked the can on copyright. The US Copyright Office (part of the Legislative Branch) is currently in the middle of a massive AI study process, and the Executive Order directs the head of the US Patent and Trademark Office (US PTO, part of the Executive Branch) to meet with the head of the USCO within six months of the Copyright Office’s issuance of any final report (traffic is bad in DC). At such time, the US PTO is directed to “issue recommendations to the President on potential executive actions relating to copyright and AI.” On the positive side, at least the EO acknowledged that copyright is relevant.

On accountability, as I noted previously in The Scholarly Kitchen, to reach its full potential AI needs to be trained on high quality materials and that information needs to be tracked and disclosed. While the EO could have said more on this topic, I was pleased to note that it includes language such as a mandate to the Secretary of Health and Human Services to create a task force whose remit includes ensuring “development, maintenance, and availability of documentation to help users determine appropriate and safe uses of AI in local settings in the health and human services sector.”

Finally, on education, I was happy to see the following:

To help ensure the responsible development and deployment of AI in the education sector, the Secretary of Education shall, within 365 days of the date of this order, develop resources, policies, and guidance regarding AI. These resources shall address safe, responsible, and nondiscriminatory uses of AI in education, including the impact AI systems have on vulnerable and underserved communities, and shall be developed in consultation with stakeholders as appropriate. They shall also include the development of an “AI toolkit” for education leaders implementing recommendations from the Department of Education’s AI and the Future of Teaching and Learning report, including appropriate human review of AI decisions, designing AI systems to enhance trust and safety and align with privacy-related laws and regulations in the educational context, and developing education-specific guardrails.

Students are not “one size fits all.” Students in my local school district speak 151 home languages other than English. Within each language group, including native English speakers, we have children from some of the wealthiest zip codes in America as well as a student homelessness rate of greater than 10%. In districts such as mine, which is diverse in terms of nearly every measure — including gender, racial, religious, and national origin — personalized and adaptive educational tools are needed. CCC’s work with schools and ed tech providers who license high quality content for AI-based rights is promising and we have experience with how districts especially would benefit from more federal support. Let’s hope it is forthcoming.

The post Thoughts on the U.S. Executive Order on Artificial Intelligence appeared first on Copyright Clearance Center.

Monday, October 30 was the final date for interested parties to submit comments to a comprehensive “Notice of inquiry and request for comments” issued by the United States Copyright Office entitled “Artificial Intelligence and Copyright.” With 34 questions asked about both copyright and technology, some parties responses exceed 100 pages. More than 9,000 responses have been filed. On the assumption that readers might be interested in this topic and less interested in reviewing all the responses, I have pasted below a selection of questions and answers from Copyright Clearance Center’s (CCC’s) own response.

Does the increasing use or distribution of AI-generated material raise any unique issues for your sector or industry as compared to other copyright stakeholders?

AI generated materials may both advance text publishing and hinder it. In sectors such as science, news, and book publishing, poor quality AI materials can generate bad science, promote misinformation, and lead to harmful results. This is not to say that such is the inevitable result of all AI; merely that it is a meaningful risk with respect to certain AI applications. AI can advance text publishing by providing tools for writing, checking, validating, and improving text-based works. It is also useful for primary research that may result in the creation of new content.

How or where do developers of AI models acquire the materials or datasets that their models are trained on? To what extent is training material first collected by third-party entities (such as academic researchers or private companies)?

In the text sector, developers of AI models — when acting lawfully — acquire materials and data sets from publishers, other rightsholders, websites that allow crawling, intermediaries, and aggregators (such as CCC). Significant amounts of content are available through licenses, including open licenses such as CC BY and CC BY-NC. Significant amounts of content are also available through the public domain. When acting unlawfully, AI developers receive materials from pirate sites, through downloading in violation of express terms and flags, and from so-called “shadow libraries,” among other things.

To what extent are copyrighted works licensed from copyright owners for use as training materials? To your knowledge, what licensing models are currently being offered and used?

Copyrighted materials are licensed for AI use directly by rightsholders and collectively through rights aggregators such as CCC. CCC’s collective licenses are non-exclusive, global, and fully voluntary. Our current AI-related offerings are focused on the corporate, research, academic and education markets.

Additionally, in science publishing, under “open access” business models, copyright owners employ open licensing which sometimes allows licensed reuse for AI under the terms of such licenses. According to this report, open models accounted for 31% of articles, reviews and conference papers in 2021.

Are some or all training materials retained by developers of AI models after training is complete, and for what purpose(s)? Please describe any relevant storage and retention practices.

Humans communicate in natural language by placing words in sequences; the rules about what the sequencing and specific form of a word are dictated by the specific language (e.g., English). An essential part of the architecture for all software systems (and therefore AI systems) that process text is how to represent that text so that the functions of the system can be performed most efficiently.

Almost all large language models are based on the “transformer architecture,” which invokes the “attention mechanism.” The latter is a mechanism that allows the AI technology to view entire sentences, and even paragraphs, at once rather than as a mere sequence of characters. This allows the software to capture the various contexts within which a word can occur.

Therefore, a key step in the processing of a textual input in language models is the splitting of the user input into special “words” that the AI system can understand. Those special words are called “tokens.” The component that is responsible for that is called a “tokenizer.” There are many types of tokenizers. For example, OpenAI and Azure OpenAI use a subword tokenization method called “Byte-Pair Encoding (BPE)” for its Generative Pretrained Transformer (GPT)-based models. BPE is a method that merges the most frequently occurring pairs of characters or bytes into a single token, until a certain number of tokens or a vocabulary size is reached. The larger the vocabulary size, the more diverse and expressive the texts that the model can generate.

Once the AI system has mapped the input text into tokens, it encodes the tokens into numbers and converts the sequences (even up to multiple paragraphs) that it processed as vectors of numbers that we call “word embeddings.” These are vector-space representations of the tokens that preserve their original natural language representation that was given as text. It is important to understand the role of word embeddings when it comes to copyright because the embeddings are the representations (or encodings) of entire sentences, paragraphs, and even documents, in a high-dimensional vector space. It is through the embeddings that the AI system captures and stores the meaning and the relationships of the words from the natural language.

Embeddings are used in practically every task that a generative AI system performs (e.g., text generation, text summarization, text classification, text translation, image generation, code generation, and so on).

Word embeddings are usually stored in vector databases but a detailed description of all the approaches to storage is beyond the scope of this response since there is a wide variety of vendors, processes, and practices that are in use.

Under what circumstances would the unauthorized use of copyrighted works to train AI models constitute fair use? Please discuss any case law you believe relevant to this question.

U.S. law has no specific rules governing the use of copyrighted materials to train AI. Rather, such uses fall under the general copyright regime. Under U.S. law, copying copyrighted content to train AI can state a cause of action for infringement [Citing, Thomson Reuters Enters. Ctr. GmbH v. ROSS Intelligence Inc., 529 F.Supp.3d 303 (D. Del. 2021) (downloading and copying of Westlaw database for the purpose of training AI).] Thus, such activities require a license to be non-infringing unless they fall under the fair use exception.

The application of fair use to an infringement is fact dependent. Copying for purposes of training an AI will usually entail copying the complete work. Whether the copying is for commercial or non-commercial research purposes will be considered. The courts will also look very closely at market harm under the fourth factor. As stated by the Supreme Court in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., 510 U.S. 569, 590 (1994) “[the fourth factor] requires courts to consider not only the extent of market harm caused by the particular actions of the alleged infringer, but also ‘whether unrestricted and widespread conduct of the sort engaged in by the defendant … would result in a substantially adverse impact on the potential market’ for the original.” And, as reinforced by the recent Supreme Court decision in Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith, 598 U.S. (2023), the impact of the infringing use on licensing is one of the key factors in determining market harm.

Relevant instructional cases include the cases mentioned above as well as Fox News Network, LLC v. TVEyes, Inc., 883 F.3d 169 (2d Cir. 2018), where the Second Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a fair use defense in a case of allegedly transformative compiling of recorded broadcasts into text searchable databases that allowed search and viewing of short excerpts. By contrast, the Second Circuit had previously considered the text mining of scanned books for non-commercial social science research in Authors Guild v. Google, Inc. 721 F.3d 132 (2d Cir. 2015), and held that copies made and used for a specific purpose involving snippets would likely fall under fair use.

There are currently multiple pending cases in the U.S. relating to use of copyrighted content for the development of AI systems. Congress has expressed interest in the issue by including language in the SAFE Innovation Framework that the Framework will “support our creators by addressing copyright concerns, protect intellectual property, and address liability.”

Should copyright owners have to affirmatively consent (opt in) to the use of their works for training materials, or should they be provided with the means to object (opt out)?

Copyright is, and should remain, an opt in regime. Placing the burden of asserting rights on the copyright holders is inequitable, burdensome, and largely impractical. Only those making copies know what they are copying in the first instance and thus the copyright owners are not in a position to opt out.

9.2. If an ‘‘opt out’’ approach was adopted, how would that process work for a copyright owner who objected to the use of their works for training? Are there technical tools that might facilitate this process, such as a technical flag or metadata indicating that an automated service should not collect and store a work for AI training uses?

There is good reason that copyright is an “opt in” regime. Some AI developers have gathered content by routinely ignoring flags, copyright notices and metadata. Thus, while there are protocols and flags that can be used and are used by rightsholders and honored by ethical AI developers, they are no substitute for placing the responsibility for compliance on the user. Moreover, requiring flags and metadata assumes that the content resides on a server or website under the control of the rightsholder. This is not always true. For example, in the recent case of Am. Soc’y for Testing & Materials v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc., 82 F.4th 1262 (D.C. Cir. 2023), the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the non-commercial posting of technical standards incorporated into reference by law is fair use. It would be problematic to assume that the entity posting the standards over the objection of copyright owners would take steps to reserve the copyright owner’s AI rights.

Finally, for smaller creators, any obligation to adopt technical protection measures or flags is unfair and unduly burdensome.

Technical flags and metadata are useful for AI developers who act ethically and have another great value; where ignored by AI developers they can provide evidence of willfulness.

What legal, technical, or practical obstacles are there to establishing or using such a process? Given the volume of works used in training, is it feasible to get consent in advance from copyright owners?

It is feasible to acquire advance consent of copyright owners. It is not feasible to place the burden on rightsholders to police their rights without knowing who is using their works without authorization and how the works are being used.

The burden of implementing technical measures, flags, and metadata may, depending on the sector, be involved, complicated and costly to copyright owners. In the recent past, international sector-wide initiatives such as ACAP have absorbed significant time and resources on the part of rightsholders and users seeking to act ethically, only to be rejected by the tech industry. Current efforts of note include the W3C Text and Data Mining Rights Reservation Protocol.

As noted above, as a practical matter, a copyright holder may have no control over websites where its content is held. This is especially true where content is posted in violation of copyright or under a copyright exception.

There is certainly enough copyrightable material available under license to build reliable, workable, and trustworthy AI. Just because a developer wants to use “everything” does not mean it needs to do so, is entitled to do so, or has the right to do so. Nor should governments and courts twist or modify the law to accommodate them.

The post The United States Copyright Office Notice of Inquiry on AI: A Quick Take appeared first on Copyright Clearance Center.

A Quick Overview of Marketplace

Marketplace is a self-service ecommerce site that enables anyone working in business, publishing, higher education, and other markets to quickly search, order, manage permissions, and purchase licenses to re-use content from the world’s leading titles in science, technology, medicine, humanities, news, business, finance, and more. Marketplace customers can also assemble academic course pack projects comprised of content, purchase single copies of articles and chapters, and request article Reprints/ePrints from thousands of publishers. The variety of services on Marketplace makes it a valuable resource for a wide range of users, and CCC is committed to expanding and growing the platform.  

Looking for Content?

Earlier this year, Marketplace introduced the ability to purchase a single copy of an article or book chapter and get immediate access, if the content is available. Customers now have flexible and convenient ways to view specific articles and chapters via download, eReader, or Adobe Digital Editions.  

A Fresh New Look and Enhanced Functionality

Our release in the spring ushered in a wave of enhancements, including a complete redesign of the homepage and exciting new features for the Medical Communications market. The modern user interface features sleek navigation and enhanced user-friendly elements that improve usability and the overall user experience. In addition, workflow improvements include revamped market options, with the introduction of a MedComms option, making it easier to select permissions to use copyrighted content for Medical Communications professionals.  

Easily View Open Access Creative Commons License Details

Our fall release brought another round of significant enhancements to Marketplace’s capabilities, including the ability to instantly view Open Access Creative Commons license details for articles and chapters right from your search results. Marketplace now displays Open Access license details within article/chapter search results for the uses a publisher makes available under a Creative Commons license. Applicable Open Access details show for Open Access articles and chapters, along with the license type and a link to Creative Commons for more information.  

You Asked for Them – MedComms Promotion Codes

The October release also introduced the ability to apply promotion codes to MedComms projects, if one is available from a publisher. You can now transact in Marketplace knowing you can leverage publisher incentives available in other CCC products.  

Stay tuned for even more features and additions to Marketplace in the coming year.  

Check out Marketplace today! 

The post Marketplace: A Year of Innovation to Meet Evolving Customer Needs appeared first on Copyright Clearance Center.

In recent weeks, Paul Tremblay, Mona Awad, Sarah Silverman, Christopher Golden, and Richard Kadrey have all filed litigation, “accusing the companies of using the authors’ copyrighted books without consent to ‘train’ their artificial intelligence software programs,” reports the Los Angeles Times.

In a June 29 statement, the US-based Authors Guild applauded the filing of this litigation.

Click below to listen to the latest episode of the Velocity of Content podcast.

“These are unprecedented times for writers and creators,” the Authors Guild stated. “Many authors are already reporting a loss of writing income from journalism and business writing due to companies using AI instead of human writers. AI-generated materials also hold the potential to flood the markets, and inevitably lower the value of human authored works.”

“Unlike so many copyright cases, there is a lot of agreement on the issue—that AI needs to have some guardrails, even among people who disagree over copyright law,” notes Andrew Albanese, Publishers Weekly senior writer. “

The post AI Faces Multiple Creator Lawsuits appeared first on Copyright Clearance Center.

“If an original work and a secondary use share the same or highly similar purposes, and the secondary use is of a commercial nature, the first factor is likely to weigh against fair use, absent some other justification for copying.”

The United States Supreme Court recently ruled in the much-watched-by-copyright-nerds infringement case of Andy Warhol Foundation v Goldsmith (hereafter “Warhol v Goldsmith”). To vastly summarize the facts, Andy Warhol licensed permission from photographer Lynn Goldsmith to allow him to adapt photographs she took of performance artist Prince and to allow Warhol to relicense those images in limited circumstances. Andy Warhol Foundation (AWF), as the heir to Andy Warhol’s rights, then subsequently relicensed the Andy Warhol works without consent of, or payment to, Goldsmith. AWF’s mission statement includes the following: [t]he Foundation upholds Warhol’s unprecedented generosity toward his fellow and future artists as an inspiration and example to artists working today.” Apparently that generosity did not extend to Goldsmith, as AWF brought her to court for a declaratory judgement of non-infringement when she wrote a letter to complain. The District Court found fair use because of the “transformative” nature of the Warhol adaptations. The 2d Circuit reversed the finding of fair use, and the Supreme Court affirmed the infringement.

So what does all of this “art stuff” mean to scholarly communications? Likely a lot, as long as everything is read in context. For years, it seemed that “transformative use” was the copyright exception that swallowed the rule, and infringers would use it to justify almost anything. While the truth was always more complicated, especially after the 2d Circuit ruled that a transformative use was still infringing in the TVEyes case, transformativeness was front and center. With the ruling in Warhol v Goldsmith, and because I cannot think of a better way to say it, “the Supreme Court has now stuffed a substantial portion of the [transformative use] blob back in the bucket.” The Court did so by focusing on the specific use — in this case, to illustrate a magazine article about Prince, rather than the “transformativeness” of the underlying work. And to that end, the Court was careful to say they are not opining on whether Warhol’s creation of the silkscreens or other uses of Goldsmith’s images would be infringing. Fair use is always extremely fact dependent.

Given my recent Scholarly Kitchen post on AI-related lawsuits, it should not be surprising that I am considering the implication of Warhol v Goldsmith to those cases. The most obvious impact will be on the image cases brought by artists and Getty images, respectively, against Stability AI. These are cases where the AI developers allegedly (1) used works of artists and photographers without consent and (2) enable the creation of works that compete directly with the infringed works. Leaving aside procedural issues and focusing on the copyright merits, attorneys in these cases are likely making happy noises. It would not take much effort to rewrite this language from the holding in Warhol v Goldsmith for the plaintiffs in question:

A photographer may also license her creative work to serve as a reference for an artist, like Goldsmith did in 1984 when Vanity Fair wanted an image of Prince created by Warhol to illustrate an article about Prince. As noted by the Court of Appeals, Goldsmith introduced “uncontroverted” evidence “that photographers generally license others to create stylized derivatives of their work in the vein of the Prince Series.” …. In fact, Warhol himself paid to license photographs for some of his artistic renditions. Such licenses, for photographs or derivatives of them, are how photographers like Goldsmith make a living. They provide an economic incentive to create original works, which is the goal of copyright.

The application of Warhol v Goldsmith to the Thomson v. Ross case may be more relevant to our sector, if less predictable. In that case, it is alleged that the Westlaw database was copied in order to create a competing product which notably does not itself display the copyrighted content. If the court was in the process of drafting an opinion on summary judgement, it will need to be rewritten regardless of the court’s initial conclusions. The alleged infringement in Thomson v Ross more closely resembles the common uses of scholarly materials in AI. The output isn’t necessarily infringing, but although the rightsholder makes the content available for AI licensing (or wishes to be able to do so in the future), the AI developer ignores licensing and strip-mines the value of the copyrighted work for its commercial purposes without consent.

Here, the court will need to consider licensing of training input under the rubrics set forth in Warhol v Goldsmith, but I believe will ultimately reach the same conclusion as to infringement given the highly commercial and competitive nature of defendant’s use. As the Court noted in Warhol v Goldsmith:

“It will not impoverish our world to require AWF to pay Goldsmith a fraction of the proceeds from its reuse of her copyrighted work. Recall, payments like these are incentives for artists to create original works in the first place. Nor will the Court’s decision, which is consistent with longstanding principles of fair use, snuff out the light of Western civilization, returning us to the Dark Ages of a world without Titian, Shakespeare, or Richard Rodgers.”

The post The Supreme Court Case of Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith: What, if Anything, Does it Mean to Artificial Intelligence? appeared first on Copyright Clearance Center.

MARC is an independent, not-for-profit organization acting as a collective licensing organization on behalf of publishers, authors, and visual creators in Malaysia. MARC’s licenses enable Malaysian content users to reproduce portions of books, journals, illustrations, and other works in a copyright-compliant way.

For more than ten years, CCC’s International Advancement Program, which complements the International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organisations (IFRRO) development activities, has been dedicated to the progress of collective licensing efforts around the world. The program helps Reproduction Rights Organizations (RROs) as they start or develop their operations and may include operational and technical support, training, marketing, educational tools, and more. Where appropriate, it encourages bilateral agreements to make it easier for emerging RROs to obtain the critical rights needed to establish or advance their businesses and further the use of collective licenses. Last year, IFFRO members elected CCC CEO Tracey Armstrong as President through 2025.

“We are very pleased to have signed this agreement with MARC and to support the new RRO as it seeks to set up a successful program of copyright licensing in Malaysia,” said Michael Healy, Executive Director, Rightsholder & International Relations, CCC. “At CCC, we have for many years helped RROs across the world get established and grow. We welcome MARC to the global community of RROs and wish it great success in its important work.”

“The bilateral agreement recently signed with CCC is an important milestone for MARC, one that expands our reach and supports us in becoming a more effective and efficient copyright management organization,” said Ahmad Hussein, CEO, MARC. “This exchange of rights with CCC will help us to better serve our members and content users and increase the market for our licensing services.”

The RROs which have participated in CCC’s International Advancement Program so far include:

• The Filipinas Copyright Licensing Society, Inc. (FILCOLS) of the Philippines,
• The Centro de Administración de Derechos Reprográficos, Asociación Civil (CADRA) of Argentina,
• The Jamaican Copyright Licensing Agency (Jamcopy),
• The Reprographic Rights Organization of Ghana (CopyGhana),
• The Zambia Reprographic Rights Society (ZARRSO), and
• The Centro Colombiano de Derechos Reprográficos (CDR) of Colombia.

The post CCC Signs Bilateral Agreement with the Malaysia Reprographic Rights Centre (MARC) appeared first on Copyright Clearance Center.

1. I want to use copyrighted material for internal use only. What are the dos and don’ts regarding permission? 

Medical communications professionals are often responsible for developing internal education or employee training to improve their business. If you find yourself using copyrighted materials for internal education or employee training, you likely need to secure permissions for that reuse. In some cases, your organization may have a license or a subscription agreement that applies to the internal reuse of content. Check the terms and conditions of these agreements to see if your reuse is covered.

2. Do I need permissions to reuse content in a conference presentation? 

If the content in the presentation was previously published in a journal or other third-party publication, it may well require permissions for reuse, even if it is the result of your own or your client’s research. Keep in mind that all copyright rights in the content are often transferred to the publishing journal. In such cases, you must seek permission to reuse that content from the journal that published the content.

3. Do I need permissions if I adapt a figure? 

There are many variations on what is meant by adaptation. It could be as simple as updating the colors or fonts to completely redrawing the figure. Whenever you adapt a figure, no matter how minor the adaptation, it’s best to seek permissions and share a copy of the adapted figure with the rightsholder to ensure the adaptation does not alter the intent of the original material.  

4. How do you know if something is fair use in the United States?  

There is no set formula for determining whether a use of someone else’s material is a fair use, but the law (Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act) sets out the following four factors for determining whether a use is a fair use:

• The purpose and character of the new use — the more commercial it is, the more unlikely it is to be a fair use. On the other hand, the more “transformative” the use is (although the meaning of that word, too, can vary), the more likely it IS a fair use.  
• The nature of the copyright protected work — the more factual and less creative it is, the more likely it is that the law would consider the use of that work to be a fair use, but the more creative the work used is (like a work of fine art), the less likely a fair use argument is available. 
• The amount and substantiality of the use of the protected work — the more you use, or the more important the part of the work used, the less likely you are to have made a fair use.  
• The impact of the new use on the market for the copyright-protected work — the more likely your use is to affect the ability of the owner of the copyright-protected work to sell or otherwise benefit from her work, the less likely your use is a fair use.  

The law says that you (or a court) has to weigh each of those four factors separately and then weigh them together to make the final determination as to whether a use of someone else’s work is a fair use, and, as you can see, it is a very fact specific determination. That is, slight changes in the facts can result in a different fair use determination.

There are some things that are usually fair use, including using relatively short quotations from works and using limited, relevant portions of works for commentary or criticism.

However, and this is especially important for medical communications professionals to know, fair use does not generally cover reuse of content by private companies for business purposes, especially if the result is something that competes with the original works in the market. Always check with your editorial department and/or your legal counsel if you think that what you’re doing with content will constitute a ‘fair use.’

In the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and many other counties in the British Commonwealth, ‘fair dealing’ is a concept similar to fair use in the United States (though it is usually considered somewhat narrower — that is, the requirements for fair dealing are usually harder to meet than the requirements for fair use). Check with your editorial department and/or your legal counsel in the applicable country for help in determining whether your proposed use would qualify as a fair dealing.

As medical communications professionals, you will likely encounter other questions about how published material can be leveraged in your projects in a copyright compliant way. As with any questions with legal implications, the best approach is to consult with your organization’s legal counsel or internal copyright expert. We also recommend ensuring you have processes and systems in place to encourage and simplify copyright compliance. Marketplace from CCC makes it easy to get pay-per-use permissions, order reprints, and purchase content for your medical communications projects from millions of works and thousands of publishers around the world — all in one place. 

The post 4 Foundational Copyright Tips for Medical Communications Professionals appeared first on Copyright Clearance Center.

In this article, we’ll answer three questions from the audience about the intersection of copyright and the reuse of published material in medical communications projects.

Why do I have to request permission to reuse content in a medical communications project?

Copyright protects original works of authorship of any kind, including journal articles, books, email, social media posts, content you post online, images (including illustrations and photographs), technical drawings, figures, and infographics.

When you reuse work in your medical communications project, remember that an important principle of copyright is that the rightsholder of that original work has the right to authorize or prohibit certain types of uses of their work. In copyright law, these are known as exclusive rights and they include the right to copy, distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, and make works based on the original work. When the copyright owner grants permission to use one of their works, they can include specific conditions like where the use would take place, the number of times the use can happen, etc.

For example, a rightsholder may grant permission to use a figure in a specific presentation. That permission applies only to that specific type of use — that presentation. If you also want to include the figure in a different presentation or setting, the original permission would not cover that use so you should secure permission specific to that reuse. And the rightsholder may choose not to grant permission to use the content in that manner.

If a journal article is published as Open Access, can I reuse it? 

For Open Access (OA) content, it’s important to understand that there are a number of different types of OA license under which the content is made available. For example, Creative Commons has developed 6 types of OA Creative Commons licenses that copyright owners may choose to use, with each license granting a different set of permissions for reuse under a specific set of conditions, e.g., the requirement to provide attribution, among other things. While some of these licenses authorize use for business purposes, several of them specify that reuse is allowed for only non-commercial purposes.

In addition to Creative Commons licenses, there are other OA license options, all of which have their own terms. When using OA content in medical communication projects, it is important to make sure you are using the content in a way that is consistent with the relevant OA license and your company’s own OA policies. 

What can a company do to be more copyright compliant? 

Navigating the complexities of copyright can be challenging. Here are a couple of ideas to help.  

• Appoint a copyright expert within your organization to answer employee questions.  
• Keep an updated copyright compliance policy and share it with employees and perhaps clients. If you don’t have a copyright compliance policy, CCC offers several template examples on our website, copyright.com.  
• Educate employees and clients on the importance of copyright compliance. You want to make sure you are always getting content from a known entity or legal source.   

You can also create a checklist of questions to ask when reusing content in a medical communications project. Below is a list of information you should be seeking to gather with this checklist, and some sample questions to help you do so: 

• Always confirm content is coming from a known entity or legal source. Sample questions: Where did the work come from? Was it legally obtained? Did you find it online?
• The intended type of use impacts the permissions needed and the price for reuse. Sample question: What do you want to do with the content?
• The duration and audience size should be known before seeking permissions. Sample questions: How long with the content be used? Once? For a year? 

The post Common Questions From the Intersection of Copyright and Medical Communications appeared first on Copyright Clearance Center.