Saturday, October 24, 2009

Would posting old midterms online be a violation of copyright law?

After taking say, a math or history midterm, would posting that midterm online be a violation of US copyright law?
Answer:
The answer above is incorrect.

Any document is copyrighted as of the moment it is written, by operation of law, without any registration requirement. The only question is who owns the copyright - whether it's the professor or the school...and that depends upon the contract between the professor and the school.

Since there is no exception to the law that would cover the use, posting the exam without permission of the copyright holder would, indeed, violate U.S. copyright law.
You'd be safe if there is no way to identify what teacher it was and to what class it belonged to.
Most midterms are not copyrighted for that reason.

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