U.S. Department of Energy - Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

Communication Standards and Guidelines

Copyright

Copyright is a property right whereby authors obtain, for a limited time, certain exclusive rights to their works. This includes:

  • Content coded in html on the page
  • PDFs or other downloadable files posted on the site, such as presentations, from organizations and companies not funded by DOE
  • Images and photos.

In the United States, most copyright protection is exclusively granted by the federal government, which provides Congress with the power "to promote science and the useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors...the exclusive right to their... writings."

Requirements

If information can be viewed on the Internet, it can be copied. Anyone posting information on a Web site is responsible for ensuring that appropriate legal clearance and permission are obtained before using someone else's work on the Internet.

If content on a Web site or within a document is copyrighted material:

  • Get written authorization from the copyright owner to post the information.
  • Display a standard copyright notice
  • Recognize that copyright owners are solely responsible for policing how copyrighted material is used.

EERE's copyright policy is available on the Web Site Policies page, linked from the footer on all pages in the EERE template.