This webpage provides basic information about copyright and issues deal with copyright. The information on this page was gathered from various websites, which will be sited for more information. This is for educational purposes only and I take absolutely no credit for the information listed on this page.
Copyright is the law of the United States that protects the works of authors, artists, composers, and others from being used without permission.
The copyright law tries to balance the rights of artists and others with the rights of the public. This is done using "fair use" and "public domain". - Fair use allows you to use a limited amount of copyrighted material for your educational use. NOTE: If you publish the copyrighted material onto a website it is no longer considered "fair use" and can violate the copyright law. Below is the amount limitation for different types of material: Motion Media: 10% or up to 3 minutes Text Material: 10% or up to 1,000 words Music, lyrics, etc.: up to 10%, but no more than 30 seconds of an individual work - Public domain is material that is not copyrighted. Most material found on government websites are public domain, but ALWAYS check the copyright statements to be sure.
Think about the material you are wanting to use, does it pass these tests:
Just because a page doesn't have the word "Copyright" or the © symbol doesn't mean it isn't copyrighted. In fact, almost everything on the Web is copyrighted. The best policy would be to contact the owner of the material and ask for permission to use the material. If you don't receive a response, do not assume that it's OK to go ahead and use the material.
Wrong! It's still a violation if you give it away and there can be serious damages if you hurt the commercial value of the property. There is an exception for personal copying of music, which is not a violation -- This excludes widescale anonymous personal copying, such as Napster.
You will know!
Besides, put yourself in the author's position. What if you create an awesome graphic
for your site (a one of a kind image), but someone else takes credit for it. Or worse,
what if you could sell this graphic to the public for "mega-tons", but someone made a
copy so now no one wants to buy it?
Under the Berne copyright convention, which almost all nations have signed, every creative work is copyrighted the moment it is fixed in tangible form. No notice is necessary, though it helps in legal cases. No registration is necessary, though it's needed later to sue. The copyright lasts 50 years after the author dies. Facts and ideas can't be copyrighted, only expressions of creative effort.
You should ALWAYS give credit or attribution to the person who created the work -- such as a photograph, sound, motion picture, document, etc. -- even if the work is not copyrighted!
Thanks! Brad Templeton, Cyberbee, and West Loogootee. More information about Copyright and issues can be acquired from these sites.
