Copyright   Tags: copyright, fair_use  

These websites provide both overviews of copyright and indepth explanations of the complex issues involved.

A list of tools designed to help you know when and how you can use copyrighted works

Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that enables the sharing and use of creativity and knowledge through free legal tools.

Copyright is the right of an author or creator of a work to control how people use his or her work. In the United States, copyright law gives authors and creators the exclusive rights to copy and/or distibute their work, to create derivative works, and to publicly perform or display their work.

United States copyright law also gives several exceptions to the authors and creators rights so that copyright doesn't prevent the use of works for things like teaching and scholarship. These exceptions include first sale, which allows you to lend or sell your copy of a copyrighted work, exceptions for classroom use, which allows students and teachers to display images and play videos as part of a class, and fair use. Fair use is designed to allow use of works for purposes like teaching, scholarship, research, and news reporting. Fair use requires the evaluation of four factors about the proposed use to determine if the use is fair.

For a more detailed overview of copyright, see the Adventist University of Health Sciences Copyright Policy. You can also read the full text of the United States Copyright Law on the official government website.

United States Copyright website.

Copyright is not a black-and-white issue. Often, determining when a use of a copyrighted work is allowed by fair use or another exception or when a use requires permission is difficult and controversial.

Various organizations and groups have tried to simplify matters by created guidelines for using copyrighted works. These guidelines can be useful in deciding whether or not you should use part of a copyrighted work. However, the guidelines should be used with caution.

Guidelines represent an attempt to define the minimum use that would be considered non-infringing. They should not be considered statements of the maximum use allowed. Many uses that fall outside the recommendations of the guidelines may be covered by fair use. The guidelines are also not infallible guards against infringement. A use that seems to fit within a guideline’s boundaries may actually be infringing under certain circumstances. While guidelines are helpful, they cannot be used as replacements for learning about copyright law and evaluating each use yourself.

(Includes some information on Course Management Systems)