About
Copyright
Copyright FAQ
What is copyright? It is the right to copy protected by federal law. The holder of the copyright is the person who owns that right and gets to decide who can copy, reproduce, perform or modify the copyrighted work. The copyright holder is typically the person who created the work, but not always.
What can be copyrighted? It's easier to list what is not protected by copyright than to list what is. Copyright protections expire after a period of time, and when they do those works pass into the public domain.
I don't see any copyright symbol on most web pages. Doesn't the © mean that it's copyrighted? A copyright notice is NOT REQUIRED for protection under copyright law on works created after March 1, 1989. Since the first web page was not created until 1991, all web pages have copyright protection under federal law (and international protection under the Berne Convention). If the web site doesn't clearly grant permission to copy, then you don't have permission to copy.
What does "All rights reserved" mean? Sometimes the copyright holder wants to make it perfectly clear that no use of the work is allowed, so All RIGHTS RESERVED is used. The copyright holder gets to decide who can use the work and for what purpose. Unless you see written permission on the work that explicitly states that you have some limited rights to copy, you must assume that all rights are reserved even if it is not stated.
What about graphics and pictures from the web? Are they copyrighted? Yes. If you use them without permission, you are violating copyright.
How about the sites that say "free graphics"? "Free" sites may contain copyrighted material that belongs to someone else. The person(s) who created the site may have illegally taken other people's copyrighted work and then offer it as "free" or in the "public domain". Be very careful of these sites. Read information on the site. Who created it? What are the terms and conditions of use? If you use copyrighted work without permission of the copyright holder or you do not abide by the terms of use, you are infringing copyright.
Isn't it OK to use copyrighted material for assignments--for educational purposes? That depends. There is a provision to the U.S. copyright law called fair use. There are four factors that must be considered in determining fair use:
- the purpose of the use
- the amount used in relation to the whole work
- the effect of the use on the market value for the work
- the nature of the coprighted work
Generally speaking, if you are using only a small portion of a work for educational purposes and you are using it only within the classroom, then you can be fairly confident that fair use applies. (You are still obligated to cite the source of the material you use or be guilty of plagiarism.)
If you publish your assignment on the web, however, the fair use doctrine does NOT apply because the work has gone outside the narrow education purposes of the classroom.
Is fair use the only way to legally use copyrighted material? The only other way to legally use copyrighted material is to get permission from the copyright holder. (Permission templates: student, teacher from Landmarks for Schools)
What's the big deal? Doesn't everybody violate copyright? It does happen a lot, but that doesn't make it OK. Would it be OK for someone to take your work and use it without your permission? That's stealing your intellectual property. Additionally, there can be serious consequences if the copyright holder decides to pursue violators. RIAA has recently brought lawsuits against people who violate copyright by illegally filesharing music, and the fines have ranged between $2,500 and $10,000.
Information Ethics Tutorial, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries
Copyright/Plagiarism Tutorial, Scholarly Communication Center of the NCSU Libraries
Creative Commons: Find sources you can use that don't violate copyright, and learn about options for licensing your own work.
Visit Wikipedia for a comprehensive encyclopedia article on copyright. Wikipedia's copyright statement is as follows:
The license Wikipedia uses grants free access to our content in the same sense as free software is licensed freely. This principle is known as copyleft. That is to say, Wikipedia content can be copied, modified, and redistributed so long as the new version grants the same freedoms to others and acknowledges the authors of the Wikipedia article used (a direct link back to the article satisfies our author credit requirement). Wikipedia articles therefore will remain free forever and can be used by anybody subject to certain restrictions, most of which serve to ensure that freedom.
