Intellectual Property Factoids
for Sharing Marketing Materials

Copyright does not protect ideas, concepts, systems, or methods of doing something. You may express your ideas in writing or drawings and claim copyright in your description, but be aware that copyright will not protect the idea itself as revealed in your written or artistic work.

Copyright does not protect names, titles, slogans, or short phrases. In some cases, these things may be protected as trademarks. Contact the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, 800-786-9199, for further information. However, copyright protection may be available for logo artwork that contains sufficient authorship. In some circumstances, an artistic logo may also be protected as a trademark.

Photographs found on an unrestricted site on the Web may be subject to copyright protection and are not necessarily shareable. It is the researcher's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions (trademark symbols and patent numbers) when publishing or otherwise distributing materials.

Work without a copyright notice on it may not be used without the permission of the owner of the work. Copyright exists from the moment the work is created. Under the fair use doctrine of the U.S. copyright statute, it is permissible to use limited portions of a work including quotes, for purposes such as commentary, criticism, news reporting, and scholarly reports. Whether a particular use qualifies as fair use depends on all the circumstances. See FL 102, Fair Use, and Circular 21, Reproductions of Copyrighted Works by Educators and Librarians. However, in cases of doubt, the Copyright Office recommends that permission be obtained.

If you pay an external agency or consultant for the development of an advertisement, you will not own the copyright for the ad unless you sign a written agreement with the developer stating that the ad will be owned by you.

If an advertisement (or work) is developed by an employee of a company, the employer owns the copyright and is considered the author of the advertisement (or work).

For video and photos be aware of right's of the people talent, publicity/privacy issues and actor's guild issues. You must get signed releases from the talent or their parent/guardian if under the age of 18 to reuse the advertisements.

There are questions that you should answer when you consider sharing marketing materials (music, television and radio commercials, video, print advertisements, etc.) between states:

If there is no agreement or an insufficient agreement for defining reuse and sublicense, then you must determine who owns the rights before sharing the materials.

Although it will cost more, it is recommended to seek broader permission for current and future use of advertisements during initial agreements. For example, if possible, include a “now or hereafter known” phrase and ask for the right to modify the content or to create a sublicense that will allow others to use the material in another state or for another purpose.