RE: Plagiarism

On Tue, 21 Jan 97, Robert Cumbow <CUMBR[_at_]perkinscoie.com> wrote:
>
> Kerry K. Taylor wrote:
> >
> > I am a former Web Master at a University Online publication. Recently,
> > the new Web Master at this online paper used my graphics, layout, and
> > some of my content in the newest edition without attributing me and
> > without my consent. I feel like I've been plagiarized. Do I still own
> > copyright or does the paper? . . . all I want is to be credited as
> > the author.
>
> If you were an employee of the university, and webmaster was part of
> your job, then probably anything you created was a work made for hire
> and the university owns the copyright. If, however, you were not
> employed by the university, and you signed no written agreement
> releasing your claims in the work to the university, then copyright
> in the work may well still belong to you as the original author.
> You should consult an intellectual property attorney who can give
> you a more conclusive analysis based on all of the facts. Of course,
> since you don't want to bring an action for injunctive relief or
> damages for copyright infringement, but only want an acknowledgment
> that you created the works in question, a simple, firm-but-nice
> letter to the university may well be sufficient---especially if you
> can support it with a claim of copyright ownership.

Mr. Cumbow's points are well taken. Let me add two more.

    First, as to consent, even if you own the copyright, there may be the possibility that the university has an implied (or even express) license to use the stuff you created.

    Second, as to attribution, this raises issues which are often dealt with under "false advertising" law doctrines such as 43(a) of the Lanham Act. I suspect that the ownership and licensing issues under copyright interact with these attribution issues.

    Bob Kreiss
    <kreiss[_at_]odo.law.udayton.edu> Received on Thu Jan 23 1997 - 21:43:15 GMT