Copyright and Free Media
Teacher Guide: "Copyright: Copyright In The Digital Teaching Environment"
SHHS Copyright Manual.pdfFor Teachers: To download a copy of the SHHS Copyright guide click here.
Copyright Overview: What is the Copyright Act?
"The Copyright Act 1968 legally grants and regulates the exclusive right of authors and creators in Australia to control the use of their work and their means to earn a living from their work. Copyright applies to literary, musical, dramatic and artistic works found in a wide range of media, including material found on the internet and on CDs and DVDs. The Act contains some exceptions which allow certain copying to be done without permission. These exceptions include provisions for fair dealing and the statutory licences that allow educational institutions to copy and print digital material.
In brief:
Q: How much copying can students do?
Students can use the following as a guide when copying for study or research purposes:
Books: Up to 10% of the book or one chapter
Anthologies: One whole item [up to 15 pages]
Journals: One article
Q: Are there exemptions from seeking copyright permission?
Some copyright material can be used without seeking permission. These exceptions include:
Fair dealing for the purpose of research or study, which allows a student or researcher to copy 10% or one chapter of a published literary, dramatic or musical work of 10 pages or more and one article from a journal.
Fair dealing for the purpose of criticism or review, which allows reviewers to make fair use of copyright material provided that they acknowledge the work.
Statutory licences which allow educational institutions to reproduce and communicate material protected by copyright.
(Information Source https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/11-12/hsc/hsc-all-my-own-work/copyright/copyright-act)
Q: I want to use music in videos I am creating for a class assessment. Is that OK?
Generally, students will be able to dub music into videos they are making for class and it is only for use in class, will not be publically broadcast or published on any electronic platforms publically accessible.
However, if the purpose for which the music is being dubbed includes other purposes, such as public screening, entry into competitions or broadcast on local TV, permission will generally be required from relevant copyright owners (see “Getting permission” above).”
(Copyright.org, https://www.copyright.org.au/ACC_Prod/ACC/Information_Sheets/Music__Use_in_Home_Videos___Student_Films.aspx)
Smartcopying
Smartcopying is the official guide to copyright issues for Australian schools and TAFE. Here you will find comprehensive and useful information to help you respect copyright: https://www.smartcopying.edu.au/
Why Is it Important to Respect Intellectual Property?
"It is important to respect intellectual property for these three reasons:
To promote creative communities and rich cultures. We must support creative work by paying writers, artists, musicians and designers for their work.
To promote freedom of speech and expression. When individual creative people can make a living from sales of their work, they are free from the pressures of sponsorship by governments or large corporations.
It is wrong to steal. It is immoral and illegal to steal other people's property unless they give you permission to use it."
Guide To Creative Commons
What is Creative Commons?
"Creative Commons licenses give everyone from individual creators to large institutions a standardized way to grant the public permission to use their creative work under copyright law. From the reuser’s perspective, the presence of a Creative Commons license on a copyrighted work answers the question, “What can I do with this work?” " (Creative Commons, https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/)
To learn more about how you can use Creative Commons licences, click here.
Places to Find Copyright Free Images and Music
(The video "Copyright_Free Images and Music" is a brief overview of the content below)
Most images and music found on the internet are protected by copyright and therefore you cannot legally use them without the creator/owners permission in writing. Failure to gain permission may leave you exposed to being sued for breach of copyright.
However... there are some copyright-free sources. Generally, you need to find images and music that are captioned "Free For Commercial Use", or something like "Free for commercial use as long as credit is given". This is mostly the case for images and music covered by Creative Commons CC4.0. Read the section below on "What is Attribution" to learn how to appropriately give credit
We will list some examples of free sites below, but before that, here are a few internet search phrases that might help you find copyright-free images that are free to use/download:
"free for commercial use images" or "free for commercial use music" -this is the best way to find completely free images and music.
"royalty free images for commercial use" or "royalty free music for commercial use" -this is okay, it can mean the music has to be purchased (bad!) but doesn't require ongoing licence payments.
Free Images
Here are some examples of websites with free images -but be careful, some of these sites have paid ad panels amongst the free images:
Pixabay: https://pixabay.com/
Upsplash: https://unsplash.com/
Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/
Freeimages: https://www.freeimages.com/
Creative Commons Search: https://search.creativecommons.org/
make sure you tick the box below the search bar "I want something I can use commercially"
once you have searched, there are filters on the left of your search results
Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/
Once you have entered a search term and you have images, click on the drop-down menu labelled "any licence"and change it to "commercial use allowed" -you must do this to get free images.
New York Public Libraries: https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/
Free vintage photos
Free Music
Bensound: https://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music/2
Free to use as long as you give attribution
Pixabay (music): https://pixabay.com/music/
Soundgator: https://www.soundgator.com/
Free sound effects -think crowd cheering, button pressing sound etc.
Musopen: https://musopen.org/music/
Classical music
Free Icons
The Noun Project: https://thenounproject.com/
The Noun Project provides icons, or small logo like images. It does require you to create an account and when you use their icons you generally need to provide attribution.
Note: They do have other resources on their website, including photos, but they are mostly charged for.
Open Source Cartoon People
Open Peeps: https://www.openpeeps.com/
Open Peeps is a Mix & Match cartoon elements source. The library works like building blocks made of vector arms, legs, and emotions. You can mix these elements to create different Peeps. It looks like you will need Photoshop or Illustrator (or similar) to collage the cartoon elements -this is a higher level of difficulty.
Please be careful when using these websites and others, sometimes websites have sections of paid ads amongst the free resources -check the licence carefully before you download. Generally, it is a bad idea to download music from Youtube, yes there is some copyright free music that you can download, but it can be hard to identify and it is too easy to make a mistake and download music that will break copyright. Rather than go for that big hit you know, be open to finding music that has a similar 'feel' and is free for use. Big names in music are almost always protected by copyright and the companies that own their music are more likely to try to protect their property.
Photo by Neora Aylon on Unsplash
What is Attribution?
Some websites give permission for free full commercial use -this means anyone from a student at a school or a professional business can use their image or music and not have to pay or identify who owns the image. Another common scenario is that you can use an image or music for free as long as you give 'attribution'. This is sometimes described as 'attribute' or 'credit'. This is basically adding a caption near the image that identifies who made the image and sometimes it may need to include where you found the image or music. In a video a credit or attribution is usually given in the credits at the end of a video. Here is an example of an image with attribution: