Rights & Responsibilities

As a matter of policy, the University of Virginia expects all students, faculty, and staff to respect copyrights and to comply with other state and federal laws that establish web and digital responsibilities. These are important personal legal responsibilities. New technologies bring with them not only new possibilities, but also challenges that may not be intuitive or obvious. One way to understand these issues is to recognize that when you create a publicly accessible website or add content to one hosted elsewhere, you are a publisher. The same legal issues that are addressed routinely by publishers: copyright, permissions, releases, privacy, etc., must be considered by you as well.

This memorandum offers an overview of key legal issues but is not intended to offer specific legal advice to individuals. Copyright law is highly fact dependent; the answer to a particular question will typically require looking at the relevant legal principle in light of those specific facts. In exploring questions, you may find the many web resources listed in the Copyright Resources Appendix, attached to this memorandum, to be helpful. If you have specific concerns on these topics arising directly out of your responsibilities as a University of Virginia employee, you should contact the Office of General Counsel.