Intellectual property - Research methods for technical communication

Practical models for technical communication - Shannon Kelley 2021

Intellectual property
Research methods for technical communication

By the time you take a technical communication course, you probably know what plagiarism is, and you know that your instructors will probably give you an F for the course if you do it. Plagiarism is a serious academic offense that involves presenting another person’s ideas, words, or research as your own, which can result in disciplinary action or expulsion from a university.

Plagiarism is not solely an academic issue. Let’s say Jessamyn finds a study on electric vehicles and presents it (with a few changes here and there) as her own original research. Even if this action doesn’t violate the company’s code of conduct, it’s likely her boss won’t appreciate her dishonesty. But do you know who really won’t like it? The researcher who invested her time and research budget to create the original report. During a late-night research session, she googles herself and finds that Jessamyn has posted the research on Tomorrow’s Taxi Company’s blog. Tomorrow’s Taxi Company might be on the receiving end of a cease and desist letter, a demand for them to take down the stolen research or be sued.

As an expert in your field, you need to understand the nuances of intellectual property. Intellectual property is defined by the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School as “any product of the human intellect that the law protects from unauthorized use by others.”3 For our purposes, we’ll touch on copyright, work for hire, fair use and public domain, and Creative Commons.

Copyright

Copyright law governs who owns intellectual property, which can include images and text. The law is simple: if you made it, you own it for the duration of your life, plus seventy years. You don’t have to do anything special to show you own your copyrighted material, such as stamp a © symbol on every page of your diary, because the law covers your work as soon as you create it, even if you don’t publish it publicly. Copyright law allows designers to seek compensation for their intellectual property.4

When someone uploads an image, text, recording, or other content to the internet, that person retains copyright unless they clearly give away those rights. What this means is that you cannot use this content in its entirety without written permission from the creator. The same is true for any content you create.

Work for Hire

If you’ve entered a work for hire contract, which is common in the technical communication field, you don’t own what you create for that job. Examples that automatically fall under this contract are workplace communication such as memos, emails, and presentations created as part of your regular job duties. For example, as an employee of Tomorrow’s Taxi Company, Jessamyn does not own the rights to her report on electric vehicles. The report belongs to her employer because they paid her to produce it.

If you are involved in a specialized project or working as an independent contractor, you agree in advance to a price for the project and how much copyright the client owns. If you get into a career like graphic or web design, understanding these agreements is vital to your livelihood.

Fair Use and Public Domain

Just because you found it online, doesn’t mean it’s free. A common mistake people make is assuming they can use whatever they find on the internet. You cannot use copyrighted materials without seeking permission.

Figure 5.9. Creative Commons Symbol. A Creative Commons license is one of several methods that allows people to use source material without requiring additional permission.

Image

U.S. copyright law allows students to use copyrighted works for limited, educational purposes under the “fair use” clause. Fair use is narrowly defined as using parts of copyrighted material for specific purposes, such as critique or a short quotation from the original. To use the whole document or major parts of a copyrighted document requires permission from the owner and often involves payment.5

When copyright on material ends, it enters the public domain. You can use any source in the public domain, which is why so many movie plots are minor variations on Shakespeare plays or fairy tales. Research published through government channels, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), is in the public domain.6

Creative Commons

Some people are interested in freely sharing information and apply “Creative Commons” licenses to their work (figure 5.9).7 This type of licensed material is free to use but may come with conditions. One condition might be that you can only use the Creative Commons material for noncommercial purposes.

Whether you use copyrighted material via the fair use clause, a source in the public domain, or material with a Creative Commons license, you should clearly identify and cite your sources.

See Chapter 2 for more on Creative Commons licenses.