Clauses · DFARS · Data rights
DFARS 252.227-7020 Rights in Special Works
Does the regulation require it to flow down?
No
The clause contains no subcontract paragraph (verified on the clause page 2026-08-05) and DFARS 227.7106 prescribes nothing about subcontracts. Primes flow it down because the copyright assignment they owe the Government is impossible to deliver unless they first hold the copyright in what the sub produced — the assignment has to originate with whoever authored the work. Four corpus documents impose it, three of them unconditionally: AAR's Nov 2023 table ('All Orders'), RTX's Nov 2024 US Government flow-down, CACI's 2020 matrix (marked applicable), and the 2005 ICRC/HiEnergy T&M subcontract, which cites it by name and JUN/1995 date.
A clause can reach your subcontract without a mandate. Once it is in your document, it is a contract term all the same. The missing mandate is a fact about the regulation. It is not a ruling on your order.
Checked against acquisition.gov on 2026-08-05 · edition JUN 1995 (no alternates) — [Reserved] under DoD class deviation 2026-O0036 since 2026-02-01 · base v0.9.3 Read the text ↗
What it makes you produce
4 items for your checklist, slowest first.
Something somebody else has to issue you
The same day if the issuer is one of your own suppliers, months if it is an assessor or an underwriter.
- 252.227-7020(d)
A license from the owner of any copyrighted work you did not create, obtained for the Government, with a statement of those rights on the transmittal before delivery
Owed when copyrighted material you do not own is going into a deliverable — stock footage, a licensed typeface, a code library or a photograph all count
Something you write
Days to weeks, and nobody outside your company has to agree to it.
- 252.227-7020(c)(2)
The copyright notice the clause dictates on the delivered work — the year of delivery, the United States Government as represented by the Secretary of the department, all rights reserved
Owed when the same works (c)(2) reaches, unless the contracting officer directs otherwise; for phonorecords the mark changes
Something you fill in and send back
Hours, once you know which one is missing.
- 252.227-7020(c)(2)
An assignment of copyright to the Government
Owed when the work was first produced, created or generated under the order and is required to be delivered under it
Nothing to send now
It does not hold the order. It decides what money moves later — what you can claim, what can be claimed from you, and what can be held back — and none of that changes after signature.
- 252.227-7020(e)
Nothing to send: you carry the liability, costs included, for proprietary rights, copyright, privacy and publicity claims
Owed when the claim arises out of the works you furnished — (f) exempts information the Government itself supplied
When it is used
DFARS 227.7106(a) (codified text): use the clause in solicitations and contracts where the Government has a specific need to control the distribution of works first produced, created, or generated in the performance of a contract and required to be delivered under it — including by obtaining an assignment of copyright — or a specific need to obtain indemnity for liabilities that may arise out of the creation, delivery, use, modification, reproduction, release, performance, display, or disclosure of such works. Use it (1) IN LIEU OF 252.227-7013 when the Government must own or control copyright in all deliverable works, or (2) IN ADDITION TO 252.227-7013 when it must own or control copyright in only a portion, with that portion identified in a special contract requirement. Also prescribed by 227.7105-3 for modified existing works (in lieu of 252.227-7021) and by 227.7205(a) for special-works computer software. No dollar threshold, no contract-type restriction. Typical subjects per PGI 227.7106(c): audiovisual works, scripts, soundtracks, musical compositions, histories and surveys, instructional materials, reports, and data collections raising privacy concerns.
Read closely
DFARS 227.7106(b) records that you keep your own use and disclosure rights in the work even though the Government takes the assignment, unless the Government separately negotiates them away. Under class deviation 2026-O0036 this number is Reserved and the deviated 227.7106(b) replaces the clause with negotiated terms, so which regime the order is written under decides whether any of this is owed.
Source: acquisition.gov, DFARS 252.227-7020, DFARS 227.7106, DFARS 227.7105-3 and DFARS 212.301 (verified 2026-08-05); DoD class deviation 2026-O0036 attachments A1 (DFARS Part 227/252) and A2 (PGI 227.7106(c)), acquisition.gov file DoD_RFO_Deviation_Part-27.pdf (verified 2026-08-05)
This is research, not legal advice. It states what the regulation says about this clause and cites the paragraph behind it. It does not rule on your order, and it does not rule on whether a prime's markings are correct.