Main NavigationDisability services navigationContact a librarian and my accounts navigation
|
||
Copyright and Fair Use
Copyright law originates from Title 17 of the United States Code; it refers to the exclusive rights to creations and works by authors, artists, and designers, while seeking to balance a general public right of access in order to exchange ideas and information, especially in an educational setting. Facts and ideas are not protected by copyright law. See Myths About Copyright. Copyright does NOT protect ideas, titles, names, short phrases, works in the public domain, mere facts, logos and slogans (although protected by trademark), blank forms that only collect information rather than provide it, and URL's (i.e., links). Copyright and Fair Use in Education Even though you work and study in a non-profit educational institution, some aspects of copyright, whoever you are, may affect you. Copyright applies to works on paper, computer disk, or other media. You must consider the Four Factors of Fair Use each time you may have to borrow an aspect of another's work. The Rights of Creators and Copyright Owners "Copyright protection subsists . . .in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed." In other words, as soon as a creative work is written down, stored on a hard drive, recorded, drawn, etc., it is protected by copyright. On one hand, this means that mere ideas cannot be copyrighted; on the other hand, it means that a creator does not have to publish his or her work or register it with the Library of Congress in order to have that work protected by copyright. (Title 17, Section 102 of the United States Code (17 U.S.C. § 102 The federal statute grants seven specific rights to owners (17
U.S.C. § 106):
Educational Use Exemptions to the Copyright Law: Non-profit educational institutions also have a right to exemptions to the Copyright Act which permit classroom display and short-term copying, however, these exemptions are intended to be narrowly interpreted: Educational Use Exemptions (17 U.S.C. § 110):
The Internet allows everyone to share an infinite range of creative works in public, however, such freedom can lead to unintentional abuse of copyrighted material. Tradition alone does not guide us to use digital files, images, and multimedia without violation, while Congress and the Federal Justice system attempt to resolve the rising divergence of new technologies from old laws. Yes, Copyright Applies on the Internet! Just as the Web has evolved, so has the development of content from "static" pages to dynamic, interactive multimedia. Some of it is copyrighted material. Because it is easy to copy email messages, images, or other documents, it is not necessarily legal to do so without first obtaining the copyright holder's permission. You can feel free to link to pages or documents already on the web, as long as the owner of the page doesn't specifically forbid the creation of links. Fair Use Exemptions to the Copyright Law: All of the following criteria must be considered when using copyrighted material for private, nonprofit purposes: Four Factors in Fair Use (17 U.S.C. § 107):
Copyright © 2008 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.
| ||
