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Useful Documents:
Copyright is a quick, simple, cost effective form of intellectual
property protection for original works of authorship.
Copyright protection is provided by the laws of the United States and
certain other nations to the authors of original works of authorship fixed in a tangible form which can be read or visually
perceived either directly or with the aid of a machine or device, such as books, software, video, multimedia works and in
some cases, databases ("works").
Copyright protection exists automatically in a work the moment it is
created. No registration or other action in the U.S. Copyright Office is
required to secure copyright (although in unique cases it may be appropriate for the Hospital to consider filing a
registration for a work).
However, use of a copyright notice is beneficial and the Hospital's
office of Corporate Sponsored Research and Licensing ("CSRL") can advise you on the appropriate form of copyright
notice for a particular work. The copyright in a work of authorship immediately becomes the property of the author(s) who
created the work. In the case of a "work made for hire" as defined by the U.S. Copyright Act, the Hospital, as
employer, and not the employee is considered to be the author.
To the extent the Hospital is not the author of the work under the
"work made for hire" doctrine, the Hospital may be the owner of a work created by a Hospital Member during the
time that Member has a professional staff appointment with, is employed by or affiliated with the Hospital or otherwise
engaged in "Hospital Activities," under the terms provided in the Hospital's Intellectual Property Policy and
the Member's Intellectual Property Acknowledgment which include certain disclosure and assignment obligations of
Members to the Hospital for such works. In deference to traditional academic freedoms, the Hospital does not claim
ownership of the copyright in a Member's "Academic Works" as defined by the MGH Intellectual Property
Policy.
You should contact CSRL if you have any questions on how copyright law
and the Hospital's Intellectual Property Policy apply to works you have created. The copyright owner has certain
exclusive rights which the owner can do or authorize others to do (subject to some limitations) including the following:
reproduce the work, prepare derivative works based upon the work, distribute copies of the work to the public, perform the
work and display the copyrighted work publicly.
Consistent with this bundle of rights, copyrightable works owned by the
Hospital are to be licensed to third parties or otherwise distributed for commercial purposes only through its office of
CSRL. There are some limits to copyright protection. Copyright only protects the actual work of the author in the form it
is expressed, i.e., through that author's description, explanation or illustration; whereas the ideas, methods,
systems, processes, concepts, principles, discoveries or devices described or embodied in a work are not protected by
copyright (although they may be patentable).
So, copyright permits another third party to independently develop a
work which implements the creator's ideas as long as that party does not copy that creator's original work. Some
works may be eligible for both copyright and patent protection, so you should contact CSRL to discuss the appropriate
intellectual property strategy for a work in which the Hospital may have ownership rights as provided in its Intellectual
Property Policy.
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