This guide will inform you on copyright, but does not supply legal advice, nor should it replace the advice of CU General Counsel.
The content of this guide was created by Marla Koenigsknecht, a library and information science student.
Works originating in one of the 181 countries who have signed the Berne Convention are given the same protections in each of the countries.
Copyright at the Vatican
The Vatican is part of the Berne Convention, meaning it is given the same protections.
Copyright is a type of intellectual property. It protects original creative works as soon as it has been fixed into a tangible medium by the author. Copyright covers works such as books, poems, blog posts, movies, plays, paintings, photographs, illustrations, sound recordings, musical compositions, and more.
Copyrighted works are created by a human and have a minimal degree of creativity. Copyright protects expression, not ideas, procedures, methods, concepts, principles, or discoveries. Because original works must be made by a human, works created by Artificial Intelligence by definition cannot hold copyright. (Copyright.gov, “What is Copyright?”)
The Copyright Clearance Center has a quick overview of copyright, fair use, and plagiarism on college campuses.
Anyone who creates an original and fixed work is a copyright owner.
Companies, organizations, and other people besides the work’s creator can be copyright owners as well. For example, works “made for hire” establishes that the works made by an employee within the scope of employment are owned by the employer. Authors of written works often sign away copyright in agreements with publishers, meaning that the publisher owns copyright once it is published.
Copyright owners have the exclusive rights to:
The owner of copyright is able to authorize others to exercise these rights.
It depends on when a work was created. The current law states copyright for works created on or after January 1, 1978, expires 70 years after the author’s death. For works without an author, copyright protection is 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter. Works created before 1978 have a different timeframe.
Check out this document for help on determining copyright.
A History of Copyright
An in-depth history of copyright straight from the source, the United States Copyright Office.
Copyright Timeline
A timeline of how our copyright laws were created and evolved over time from the Association of Research Libraries.
Copyright Laws
Information about specific copyright laws and statutes from CopyrightLaws.com.
Resources from Catholic University’s Office of General Counsel:
Compact Copyright by 
Copyright Law for Librarians and Educators by 