Copyright is an aspect of intellectual property law. It protects original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression—including print media, the Internet, CDs, DVDs, videotape, and so on. Copyright law covers published and unpublished works, regardless of the presence of a claim to copyright. (More information on U.S. copyright law is available from the U.S. Copyright Office.)
Copyright ownership begins with the creation of new work, such as the text of a book, journal article, proceedings paper, newspaper article, Web page, or Ph.D. dissertation. It applies to the expression of ideas but not to the ideas themselves. It also applies to the creation of figures or tables that present data but not to the data. As an author, you own the copyright to materials you create (unless you created the material as a work for hire or while employed by the U.S. government or the governments of the United Kingdom, Canada, or Australia).
Copyright gives the owner a collection of rights that include reproducing and distributing copies of the work and licensing others to translate or reuse the work. Most publishers require authors to transfer copyright ownership so that the publisher’s right to reproduce, distribute, and license the work is clear and unquestionable. Publishers can then distribute a work as widely as possible while protecting the author’s work against infringement.
Before ASCE publishes any materials—journal articles, technical notes, proceedings papers, books, and CDs, to name a few possibilities—the copyright ownership of the materials must be clear and, except in a few special cases, transferred to ASCE. This transfer is done through a Copyright Transfer Agreement (CTA). Learn more about ASCE's copyright policy and download the correct Copyright Transfer Agreement form.
As a traditional publisher of technical material, ASCE respects the copyright ownership of other publishers and requires ASCE authors to obtain permission to reproduce any material that is under a third-party's copyright. Learn more about permissions.