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Copyright and Creative Commons
Understanding copyright information and adhering to copyright laws and fair use guidelines is a critical for any instructional designer, multimedia developer, or educator. As educators it is also important to be able to protcect your work without preventing people from having access to learning materials. The copyright information resources below give an overview of copyright laws and fair use guidelines.
Educational Fair Use
Even if copyrighted materials are being used for educational purposes, copyright laws still apply. However, they are much more lenient than in commercial settings. The following links explain the rules for using works for educational purposes.
Copyright and K-12: Who Pays in the Network Era? - American public schools are spending less than three percent of their budgets each year on textbooks and other copyrighted works--approximately $5.4 billion out of current expenditures of well over $200 billion. Many teachers and students are either doing without the material or pirating it. The goal of this paper by David H. Rothman is to enlighten the K-12 community about the issues involved with copyright sharing educational materials.
Copyright Implementation Manual (CIM) - Copyright law is complex, constantly evolving, and open to a wide range of legal interpretation; it's the goal of CIM to provide teachers, librarians, and students with clear instructions on the permissible uses of copyrighted materials. This manual was developed for the Groton Public Schools.
Fair Use of Copyrighted Works A Crucial Element in Educating America - This home page contains the electronic version of Fair Use of Copyrighted Works, a pamphlet published by CETUS. It was put together by the Working Group on Ownership, Legal Rights of Use and Fair Use of the CSU-SUNY-CUNY Joint Committee. It also contains links to fair-use guidelines and other resources that are intended to promote a fuller understanding and appreciation of copyright laws.
Keeping it Legal: Questions Arising out of Web Site Management - 1996 article written by Jamie McKenzie for school administrators discussing some potential copyright violations arising from student and staff Web pages.
No Rights Reserved - Public Domain Content
Many works are considered to be in the public domain. In this case either the copyright for these works has expired or the author has decided not to copyright the work. This allows them to be used and distributed freely. As a basic rule of thumb, works copyrighted before 1923 are safely in the public domain. For a complete listing of availalble public domain resources on the internet, check out our public domain resources page.
Some Rights Reserved - Copyleft, Creative Commons
Copyleft and Creative Commons licenses are similar to public domain. Materials that have been "copylefted" or placed under the Creative Commons license are available for use and discribution under certian limitations (read the Copyleft text). The following are links to excellent Creative Commons and Copyleft sites.
- Creative Common - Firefox allows you to search Creative Commons materials in the search bar , Yahoo! allows you to search for Creative Commons materials under their advanced serach options.
- Wikipedia
- Internet Archive - Allows searching and hosting of creative commons works
- Flickr - Allows searching and hosting of creative commons photographs
- PLoS - Public Library of Science
General Copyright Information
Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) - The CCC is a not-for-profit organization created at the suggestion of Congress to help organizations comply with U.S. copyright law. This site contains information about copyright law and through its licensing programs, it provides authorized users with a lawful means for making photocopies from its repertory of over 1.75 million titles.
Crash Course in Copyright - University of Texas information, easy to understand and very comprehensive.
US Copyright Office - provides information about both national and international copyright laws as well as provides links to other resources.
US Copyright Office-Copyright Basics - US Copyright Office circular providing overview of copyright laws.
Copyright for Electronic Media
Association of Computing Machinery Copyright and Intellectual Property - The ACM U.S. Public Policy Committee (USACM) serves as the focal point for ACM's interaction with U.S. government organizations, the computing community and the U.S. public in all matters of U.S. public policy related to information technology. Updates on laws, and proposed bills are posted along with links to discussions and articles relating to Copyright and Intellectual Property.
The Copyright Website! - The Copyright Website! endeavors to provide real world, practical and relevant copyright information of interest to infonauts, netsurfers, webspinners, content providers, musicians, appropriationists, activists, infringers, outlaws, and law abiding citizens by seeking to encourage discourse and invite solutions to the myriad of copyright tangles that currently permeate the Web.
Cyber-Property: Copyright, Citations, and The WWW - The move to cyberspace poses unique problems in copyright and citation, but existing copyright laws and citation guidelines stop short of these new electronic frontiers. This paper by Janice R. Walker discusses the roles educators should play in the formation of Internet regulations.
Digital Future Coalition - The 42 member Digital Future Coalition (DFC) is committed to preserving the time-tested balance between the rights of owners of intellectual property and the traditional use privileges of the public. Created in 1995, the DFC is a unique collaboration of many of the nation's leading non-profit educational, scholarly, library and consumer groups, together with major commercial trade associations representing leaders in the consumer electronics, telecommunications, computer and network access industries. Thus, the DFC membership represents both the owners and users of intellectual property.
Shifting Boundaries of Intellectual Property: Copyright, Intellectual Property, and Publishing on the WWW - by Joan Latchaw & Jeffrey R Galin. Collection of links to materials on copyright, Fair Use, Intellectual Property, and Examples of Copyright and Disclaimer Statements.
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Related Links
Public Domain
APA Style Guide
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