Copyright is a word most of us are familiar with. In my days as a school librarian, it was one of the topics I addressed with kids – primarily in the context of preparing a research paper. However, whatever we learned about using other people's written material in school was okay for school, but not out in the "real" world. Educational settings are benefited by the copyright principle known as Fair Use – the use of someone else's work to support your own, in reasonable quantities, being allowable under the Copyright Law.
As Executive Director of this Association, I have the opportunity to look at many manuals for training, challenge course programming, and marketing materials. I see what I believe to be many violations of copyright, which is more accurately covered today by the phrase "intellectual property." Intellectual property covers patents, trade secrets, service marks, and trademarks in addition to copyright, and also encompasses music, video, electronic documents, and so on.
The ACCT logo has been trademarked. What that means is that ACCT owns the way those letters are laid out, in a stacked or triangular configuration, and no one can use that particular configuration of these letters without our permission. Similarly, the predominant servicemarked phrase in our industry is "Challenge by Choice," which is owned by Project Adventure. Project Adventure's stance on the permitted uses of this phrase is that the phrase may be used programmatically, but not for commercial or marketing purposes. Other companies have also gone to the trouble of legally protecting their intellectual property rights by patenting, copyrighting, service marking, and trademarking their products. Using these legally protected materials without permission could subject you to a claim of infringement. The key concept here is "with permission." If in doubt, ask for it!
This is a long and complicated issue about which I do not claim to give legal advice, as I am not an attorney. I can give you the name of our attorney who specializes in intellectual property, if you are interested, and I can give you the benefit of my experience when it comes to your documents, which I am always happy to do. If your company owns a patent, a service mark or trademark, please let me know so I can amass an ongoing list of those items.
Our ACCT standards address this issue, as well, in Section 7 of the Ethical Standards. If you are advertising that you meet ACCT standards, please be sure you consider that the ethical standards are an integral part of this.
I encourage all of you to look at your printed and electronic materials in light of the intellectual property laws, which govern us in the United States and in your country, if you live outside the U.S.
