Copyright glossary

Attribution is giving credit and acknowledging the author or copyright holder of a work. In Creative Commons licensing, the CC BY license requires that all works under this license be attributed as specified by the author or licensor. 

The creator of the original expression of a work. The author is also the copyright owner unless there is an agreement to transfer the rights to a publisher or licensor. 

Also known as Postprint, an Accepted Manuscript (AM) is the paper after peer review, when it has been revised and accepted for publication by the publisher. 

As an author, you own copyright to your work unless an agreement is signed to transfer your rights to a publisher. You should be mindful that signing away your right will limit your own use, or your students and colleagues' use of your work in teaching, research and other purposes. 

The legal right given to the creator of a piece of work for a definite number of years, to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material. In Hong Kong, copyright lasts for 50 years with minor variations depending on the nature of your work. 

A violation of the exclusive rights of a copyright holder, such as copying, distributing, or performing the copyright owner's work without permission, unless the use is authorized by law, such as in the case of fair dealing. 

An identifier placed on copies of the work to inform copyright ownership. It usually consists of the symbol © or the word “copyright”, name of the copyright owner, and the year of first publication, e.g., ©2018. Hong Kong Baptist University. All rights reserved. Note that the © mark is not a sign of registration, simply a signal to others to respect your right as the owner. 

The length of time the law allows you as the copyright owners to hold the exclusive rights to your original work. 

Creative Commons (CC) licenses are one of six forms of public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted work. Anyone can use a CC license to give others the right to share, use, and build upon a work you have created. Read more about Creative Commons. 

Work based on pre-existing works resulting in a new form such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramas, fictions, motion picture, sound recording or art reproduction. In Creative Commons licensing, the No Derivatives license permits people to copy and distribute a work provided that they do not change it or create derivative works. These licenses ensure that no matter how many times a work is copied and shared, the content of the copies will be the same as the original. 

A period during which access to a journal article is not allowed to users without paid access, or institutional access.  

Copyright does not protect ideas but only the expression or product of an idea. An example from the Intellectual Property Department: "you will probably infringe the copyright in a recipe book if you photocopy it without authorization but if you use the recipe to make a meal, copyright in the book is not infringed." 

Fair dealing refers to exemptions aimed at facilitating modern teaching and applies to both printed and online works. The exemption allows teachers and students to use reasonable portions of copyright work in a fair manner for teaching and learning (see Q2 on Copyright & Copywrong). 

Name given to a group of separate intangible property rights, including trademarks, patents, copyright, designs, plant varieties and the layout design of integrated circuits. Brand-names logos on clothes like T-shirts, articles in the newspaper, TV programs, pop songs, cinema films movies and fashion design all have a strong connection with intellectual property. 

Permission granted by the copyright holder to copy, distribute, display, transform and/or perform a copyright work. 

Open Access (OA) is an international movement started in 2002 that advocates for the practice of making research and scholarly work freely accessible on the internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute and print. HKBU adopted the Open Access Policy in 2016 and requires that faculty deposit their work and encourages students to deposit their theses and dissertations in the University's IRIMS. See the Open Access Guide. 

A patent is a right granted by the government to prevent others from using, making or selling an invention without the permission of the inventor. 

Plagiarism is about academic integrity and happens when someone fails to properly attribute the author or creator of a work, whether it be ideas, text, or images.  

Also known as Accepted Manuscript (AM), Postprint is the digital draft of a journal article that has incorporated the reviewers' comments after the peer review process. This is the final version of a paper before it is sent off to the journal for publication. 

Sometimes referred to as the Author Original Manuscript (AOM), this is the early form of your paper you submit to a journal and has not been through the peer review process, usually in a word processing format. 

Creative materials that are not protected by intellectual property laws. These materials either entered the domain due to copyright having expired, or not been renewed, or the owner deliberately dedicated the work for sharing. Cornell University maintains a helpful page listing the Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the U.S.

A Version of Record (VoR) is the final definitive citable version of an article published on the publisher's website. This is the version Library databases will link to and depending on publisher policy, is often not allowed to be shared without subscription access until after an embargo period.