Copyright

"Copyright is a legal device that provides the creator of a work of art or literature, or a work that conveys information or ideas, the right to control how the work is used." Copyright is to make sure that people aren't using other peoples work and claiming it as their own. Things that are public and things like words, names and other short phrases are things that cannot be copyrighted. Copyright protects many things. To name a few, you may not make copies of the work, sell the work, or distribute copies of the work. Copyright is also a thing for online and electronic publishing. If you make a copy of an online source for yourself it is most likely fair use, but if you make a copy and post it online it is probably not going to be considered fair use.

Something that you should not do is make copies of your work and use them semester after semester. You should also not make copies of your work and turn it in to different courses. Students are allowed to incorporate portions of copyrighted materials when they are doing a project, but they should not be excessive amounts of copyrighted work. If it is media there should be three minutes max. If it is text there should only be up to 10 percent of the total, or 1,000 words. There should be no more than five images from one artist or photographer.


There is now a T.E.A.C.H. Act that helps to show how copyright works in online, distance education. Before this act the U.S. copyright law applied to the classroom only involved face to face settings.


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