Jeanne Boyle, Associate University Librarian   for Planning and Organizational Research jeboyle@rci.rutgers.edu Oct. 2, 1999

Research Resources: Subject Research Guides: Copyright:
Interim Copyright Policy

This page is now superceded by Interim Copyright Policy [PDF].

It is the policy of the University not to infringe upon the traditional rights of faculty, staff, and students to write or otherwise generate, on their own initiative, copyrightable materials to which they have sole rights of ownership and disposition. The University makes no claim to copyrightable materials because it provides the libraries, offices, and laboratories where the materials are generated or because it pays salaries to those who generate the materials.

The University does, however, claim property rights to copyrightable materials when it provides facilities, salaries, or other support for the express purpose of creating such materials. Included may be such items as books, pamphlets, or other printed matter; film, video tape, and audio recordings; computer programs or computer-based instructional materials; or any other items covered by the Federal Copyright Act as now existent or as later amended.

Whenever University personnel are employed or directed by their departmental chairman, dean, or other University officer, to produce specific works subject to copyright, the following policies shall be in effect:

• The chairman, dean, or officer shall decide whether or not the material will be produced and distributed with copyright protection. In the interests of free dissemination of knowledge, materials produced by faculty will ordinarily not be copyrighted by the University. But if the cost of producing the materials must be recovered from sales, or if there is other good reason, the materials shall be copyrighted in the name of Rutgers University, or in the name of a publisher with whom the University will enter into a contract.

• If the materials are to be copyrighted, their author or authors and if appropriate their publisher shall enter into a Copyright Agreement with Rutgers University. Property rights to the materials shall be divided between the University, the author or authors, and the publisher in an equitable way, reflecting the contribution made by each party to the finished materials. The copyright Agreement shall be signed by all parties before work on the project begins. The Vice President for Research and/or other appropriate officials shall sign for the University, upon the advice of the Research Administration Board or its subcommittee on Patents and Copyrights. The author of authors will be considered as creating the work for hire by the University.

• Nothing in this Policy shall abrogate the copyright provisions of any grant or contract that the University accepts from a research sponsor, either governmental or private, when such contracts or grants provide the sponsor with specified rights in the materials resulting from the research or when such contracts or grants limit the right of the of the copyright.

• Nothing in this statement should be taken as applying to the policies and practices of the Rutgers University Press, which customarily obtains copyrights on the books that it publishes in the name of Rutgers University.

The Vice President for Research and his staff are available to all members of the University's faculty, staff, and student body to provide technical advice or sources of information with respect both to questions concerning protection of their individual rights to materials they have generated or questions involving the use of any currently copyrighted materials in their work as teachers, scholars, and creators of their own copyrightable materials.