Defense Civilian Faculty Copyright Act of 2025
Sponsors
Legislative Progress
In CommitteeMr. Bacon introduced the following bill; which was referred to …
Summary
What This Bill Does
This bill allows civilian faculty at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences (USUHS) to retain copyright ownership of scholarly works they create during their employment, while granting the Federal Government royalty-free use rights. It brings USUHS in line with other federal research institutions where faculty already have this privilege.
Who Benefits and How
Civilian faculty members at USUHS benefit directly by gaining the ability to copyright their academic publications, textbooks, and research papers. This allows them to earn royalties from their work and increases their professional standing in academia. Academic and medical journal publishers also benefit by being able to contract with USUHS faculty for copyrighted content, rather than dealing with government works that are in the public domain.
Who Bears the Burden and How
The Federal Government loses its automatic ownership rights to works created by USUHS civilian faculty. However, the government retains royalty-free use rights, so it can still use these works without payment. The practical cost to taxpayers is minimal since these works would be niche academic publications with limited commercial value.
Key Provisions
- Adds USUHS to the list of federal institutions in Section 105(d)(2) of the Copyright Act
- Civilian faculty works become copyrightable rather than automatic public domain
- Federal Government retains royalty-free license to use the works
- Updates statutory cross-references to accommodate the new entry
Evidence Chain:
This summary is derived from the structured analysis below. See "Detailed Analysis" for per-title beneficiaries/burden bearers with clause-level evidence links.
Primary Purpose
Allows civilian faculty at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences (USUHS) to retain copyright on their scholarly works while granting the Federal Government royalty-free use rights.
Policy Domains
Legislative Strategy
"Extend existing copyright retention privileges for federal civilian faculty to include USUHS faculty, aligning treatment with other federal research institutions"
Likely Beneficiaries
- Civilian faculty at USUHS
- Academic publishers
- Medical research community
Likely Burden Bearers
- Federal Government (loses potential copyright ownership claims)
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.
Learn more about our methodology