Dear Brian
thank you for your message.
I don’t know if you are interested in copyright as a user/reader or as an author.
The rules about copyright may be different in different states. Anyway, each published work cannot be copied or spread because this would violate the author’s and publisher’s rights. Some exceptions are possible, concerning papers to be used for teaching purposes. There are, moreover, “open source” papers which readers may use free of charge. Rules about papers generally are indicated in the same papers or the journal where they are published.
A rather different matter concerns psychological tests, inventories or scales, which are generally subject to copyright, and which may be open source or against payment. A good rule may be to ask directly the author/authors, if not specified.
If you are interested in copyright as an author, you have to specify when you publish your work if the paper – or the instrument you propose – is open source or has copyright with a price.
Finally, there is another way regarding scientific dissemination, called “creative commons”, which is a way to share your work, published in a repository (or in a journal). In this case, too, it is possible to decide different kinds of limitation for the sharing. You can find all the rules on https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/.
Many wishes for your work!
