Can medical communicators share an article from a medical journal with colleagues? What about reusing a graph from a published paper? What is fair use, and how do you know the difference between noncommercial and commercial use for licensing?
The answers to these questions are not cut and dried. Many people become confused when navigating various types of permissions and copyright protections, but there are some basics that can be helpful, whether you are a freelancer or an employee as a professional medical communicator.
Copyright Basics
In the simplest terms, intellectual content that is published, recorded, or disseminated belongs to somebody. It has a legal owner, a copyright holder. That owner may not be the person who created it—copyright can be assigned to someone else, or it can belong to the hiring party in cases of works made for hire. Most major scientific journals require authors to sign over their copyright to the owner/publisher. For example, articles published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and other prestigious journals are owned by the American Medical Association (AMA).
Most sharing of copyrighted materials requires permission, even if you are just sharing within your organization or company. In the AMWA recorded webinar Demystifying the Copyright Conundrum: Literature Sharing, Open Access, and AI, subject matter expert Jill Shuman, MS, ELS, explores the history and evolution of copyright law in the United States. She untangles the various copyright reuse protocols for medical communicators, offering insights on how to use and share copyrighted materials in an ethical and compliant manner.
According to Shuman, the creator of the work is not the owner of the copyright approximately 60% of the time; it is common for authors to sign over the copyright to publishers, therefore losing control over how their work is shared or reused.
The History and Purpose of Copyright in the United States
Copyright has been in place in the United States for almost 250 years. The Copyright Act of 1790 had the lofty goal of protecting the work of writers, artists, and scientists by copyrighting their work for 14 years, with the option of renewing the copyright for another 14. Over the years, copyright was extended, and the law was amended multiple times.
Today’s copyright laws protect the interests of those who own content, not necessarily those who create it. The owner of a work has the right to determine how the work will be accessed and shared.
Personal Use versus Sharing
As a user of content, you always have the right to read and store a single copy of something you have purchased or downloaded for free. The copyright rules kick in once you want to share the article with someone else.
What if you are a medical writer working at a pharmaceutical company, and you want to share an article with a group of project managers? To do so, according to an example Shuman shared, you’ll need to seek permission from the publisher. Some large firms, however, have copyright licenses that allow the sharing of materials in this way. That is often arranged through the company’s librarian or IT department.
What Is Covered?
Most intellectual property is covered under copyright protection. For example,
-
Videos
-
Music
-
Internet content, such as websites
-
Open access journal articles
-
Traditional publisher journal articles
-
Scientific posters
-
Blog posts
-
Podcasts
-
Patient questionnaires and scales (One depression scale, PHQ-9, is copyright-free because it is published by the US government.)
-
Cartoons
-
Computer code
-
Software programs
-
Technical standards
-
Artwork
-
Sculpture
What Is Not Covered?
Exceptions to copyright protection are
-
Something not fixed in a tangible medium, like an idea
-
Facts in data, meaning you cannot reproduce a table as it exists, but you can use the facts within it to create another image
-
All US government works
Ethical Concerns
“Copyright compliance is really simple,” says Shuman, “It’s about doing your best to ensure that you have permission to use or reuse content in a manner consistent with the way the owner wants it to be reused—and in many cases, that is a single copy that is not to be shared unless you ask for permission to do so.”
Respecting copyright protections is a matter of ethics and integrity.
According to the AMWA Code of Ethics, which guides the conduct of professional medical communicators, “Medical communicators should recognize and observe statutes and regulations pertaining to the materials they write, edit, or otherwise develop.”
As AMWA members and members of the community of professional medical communicators, it is our responsibility to comply with copyright law.
Compliance Tips
-
When in doubt, check with the owner of the content before reusing or sharing content; most publishers have a permissions department that handles these requests.
-
If you work for a big company, check to see if your firm has a company-wide copyright license that allows for sharing materials.
-
Know that when you search for images on Google, most of those images are protected by copyright. You can filter by “usage rights” to get a list of images that are copyright-free.
-
Learn where to get copyright-free images.
-
If you discover prices are exorbitant for reusing an image, consider recreating the figure using the data, which is not copyright protected.
-
Use PubMed Central to find and download millions of articles, but don’t assume that everything there can be shared. You still need to check to see what kind of license the article was published under.
-
Do not use file-sharing sites like ResearchGate and SCI Hub, which use bots to download scientific articles without the authors’ permission.
-
Think twice before embedding a YouTube video in a slide show, posting a commercial podcast on your company site, or creating multiple reprints of an article. All of these actions violate copyright laws.
Open Access Publishing
Open access (OA) publishing is a model that allows authors more freedom to choose which kinds of reuse rights are allowed. The cost of publishing and distributing the article is generally shifted from the reader to the author because open access journals typically require an article processing charge (APC) to cover the cost of editing, peer review, hosting, archiving, and preserving. The charges can be steep. Authors retain the copyright and can choose which kinds of permissions they want to grant.
Open access publishing is not the same as predatory publishing, or pseudoscientific journals, which short-circuit the important peer review process. In a joint statement, AMWA and other professional associations condemn the practice of predatory publishing.
Creative Commons Licensing
When authors publish in open access journals, they can choose a Creative Commons license. Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that houses information and images, including those of Wikipedia and the Smithsonian. There are various levels of Creative Commons licenses, listed here from most to least permissive (with descriptions from the Creative Commons web page):
-
CC BY. “This license enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use.”
-
CC BY-SA. “If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.”
-
CC BY-NC. ”This license enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.”
-
CC BY-NC-SA. Same as above, but “Adaptations must be shared under the same terms.”
-
CC BY-ND. “Enables reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use.”
-
CC BY-NC-ND. “This license enables reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.”
When submitting or sharing an open access document, always check the copyright and license details to understand how the content can be used. This information is typically found on the opening page of a document, at the bottom of an article, on the publisher’s website, or by clicking the Creative Commons license icon. For further details on specific licenses and their permissions, you can also visit the Creative Commons website.
Commercial versus Noncommercial Purposes
Fair use is a legal doctrine that allows certain reuses of copyrighted material. Fair use is when something is used for “criticism, commentary, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research.”
The first factor that is evaluated when deciding whether something falls under the fair use doctrine is “the purpose and character of the use, including whether the use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes.” However, not all nonprofit use is considered “fair,” and the courts use multiple criteria to determine whether reuse of copyrighted material is “fair.” Legal considerations include the nature of the copyrighted work, the amount of material being reused, and the effect on the potential market or value of the copyrighted work.
The US Copyright Office’s “Can I Use Someone Else’s Work? Can Someone Else Use Mine?” FAQ page has in-depth answers about copyright and helpful links. The Copyright Office’s Fair Use Index further explores this topic.
Learn More About Copyright
For medical communicators looking to learn more about copyright and the ethical sharing of material, the following resources are available.
- The US Copyright Office’s Copyright Clearance Center has plenty of helpful information on copyrights, licensing, and exploring the ethical use of artificial intelligence (AI).
- The Directory of Open Access Journals is a clearinghouse for scholarly articles worldwide.
- Creative Commons has information on licenses and tools.
AMWA has course offerings that explore copyright issues.
- Demystifying the Copyright Conundrum: Literature Sharing, Open Access, and AI was used as a source for this article.
- The Challenges of Copyright in the Internet Age is a free members-only video that teaches the basics of US copyright law, explores fair use, and explains how to obtain copyright permission.
The Last Word
As writers, we know the struggle, sweat, and satisfaction that comes from putting in the work to create a piece of writing. We also hold ourselves to the highest professional and ethical standards. We’re constantly adding to our knowledge base, and it’s time to incorporate best practices for copyright. Know how to use and share content legally, ethically, and professionally. It’s how we roll.
AMWA acknowledges the contributions of Kathy Adamson, DVM, for peer review in the development of this AMWA resource.
