Copyright

Under current United States law, copyright is granted automatically and immediately to the author/creator of a work after it is produced in a fixed form; there is no requirement for registration or notification. Copyright confers certain rights to the copyright holder for a specific length of time depending on numerous factors. Ideas and procedures are not copyrightable. For learning materials on copyright and fair use, see https://libraries.unl.edu/copyright-fair-use.

Copyright © of Items in This Repository

Most items in this repository are copyrighted © by their publishers to whom those rights have been transferred. Inclusion of a publication in this repository does not alter the copyright status of any document.

The holders of copyright are declared in most cases where they are known, and these are the parties who control the rights to further re-use of the materials.

Users are free to download, save, and print materials found here for their own use. With some exceptions (noted below), users should not re-publish, re-post, or redistribute materials without permission of the holders of copyrights.

Some exceptions:

Materials published under a Creative Commons attribution (CC BY) may be re-used, re-posted, etc., for non-commercial purposes as long as credit or attribution is given to the original authors and publications. There are other CC licenses that limit re-use. See Creative Commons: Share Your Work for details.

Materials that are in the public domain may be re-used in any way without limitation. These include:

  • works published before January 1, 1930 (this is as of January 1, 2025; each of these dates rolls forward one year annually)
  • works published before January 1, 1963 without a copyright notice or whose copyrights were not renewed
  • works whose authors have been dead for more than 75 years, unless previously copyrighted and still within term
  • United States government works, including US Patents and works by US government employees created in the course of their official duties
  • works of Florida state employees created in the course of their official duties
  • works dedicated to the public domain via a license, such as Creative Commons CC0

Fair use

In the United States, the doctrine of fair use permits the quotation or reproduction of excerpts from a copyrighted work without permission. The entire work, however, may not be excerpted. There is no rigid standard, but you can make an informed decision about how much and what can be re-used in various contexts using a fair use calculator such as the one provided by the Copyright Advisory Network.

Educational use

United States law permits the classroom display or use of copyrighted works within the context of instruction at an accredited non-profit educational institution without further permission. This does not extend to distribution of such works, however.