Copyright Basics

Not sure if you are violating copyright? This is the place to check! There is information about what you can and cannot do with copyrighted work. Check out the Multimedia Projects page for links to websites where you can find things you can use and for guides on how to do legal Google image searches.

Am I plagiarizing?

All of the following are considered plagiarism:

· turning in someone else's work as your own

· copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit

· failing to put a quotation in quotation marks

· giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation

· changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit

· copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not

REMEMBER, Plagiarism=BAD. It is basically stealing someone's intellectual property and it can get you into big trouble. So you need to make sure that you are not doing it. You can learn more from these websites:

The OWL at Purdue has a whole section dedicated to plagiarism and it can answer many of your questions.
You can take this plagiarism quiz to see if you understand plagiarism.
Plagiarism.org is a real website and they have tons of information on what constitutes plagiarism.
The Writing Center at UNC-Chapel Hill has this handout to help students avoid plagiarizing.
Don't think plagiarism is such a big deal? Check out this article to see what happens to people who plagiarize in the work world.

Copyright Infringement

Copyright infringement is basically like plagiarism for any copyrighted works, including, but not limited to: photographs, artwork, music, and video.

Here are the Fair Use Guidelines for Music, Video, Pictures and Written work:

Music and Video

Yes, that includes anything on YouTube!

Video, Animation

Up to 10% or 3 minutes of a copyrighted work (whichever is less)
Video clips cannot be altered in any way to change their intent

Music

Up to 10% of a musical composition or sound recording, but no more than 30 seconds
Network Music (purchased music) may be used in its entirety for Catawba County Schools student and teacher presentations. You can get a FREE Killer Tracks account. Come see Ms. Cordeiro in the library for more information.

Text and Pictures

YES, THIS INCLUDES ANYTHING YOU FIND IN A GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH! And you have to cite the source for the photograph, too!

Photographs, images

· 5 or fewer photos from a single artist

· No more than 10% or 15 photos from a collection (whichever is less)

Text

· Up to 10% or 1000 words

· Entire poem if it is less than 250 words. Excerpt of 250 words or less from a longer poem

· Only 3 poems by one poet or 5 poems by different poets