Copyright

Learn more about public domain, creative commons, and fair use.

WHY YOU SHOULD CARE ABOUT COPYRIGHT

Copyright law is meant to protect your rights as a creator and states how others can use your work and how you may include others work within your own. Knowing how copyright law protects you and others from having their work stolen or used without permission will help you determine how to provide access to your projects and when it is legal to include other's work within your own.

*If you created an original work, then you are the copyright owner. You do not need to register your work with the US Office of Copyright to claim ownership rights over your original work.

To know how others may use your work (legally) and how you may incorporate or reference other creators' work, you should familiarize yourself with three basic copyright concepts: Public Domain, Creative Commons, and Fair Use.

PUBLIC DOMAIN

Works that fall under public domain are those that don't carry copyright protections, which means you are free to use them any way you like. Public domain works are works for which copyright protections have expired, have been placed under public domain by the copyright owner, or don't fall under categories protected by copyright laws. Read more about the duration of copyright here.

CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSES

Creative Commons (CC) Licenses let other people know how you want your work to be used, shared, and credited. CC licenses allow you to decide whether you would like to be credited, if you allow for adaptations or derivatives of your work to be created, if the person using your work must share their work in return, and whether you allow your work to be used for commercial purposes. To apply a CC license, decide which layers of permissions you'd like to apply to your work and simply state it (like we do on this website's footer). When using other people's creations, make sure you are crediting and sharing according to the CC license they have applied to their work. If the work is not under the public domain and does not have a CC License, check if your activity falls under Fair Use (described below).

Visit creativecommons.org to learn more about the types of Creative Commons Licenses available and use this simple tool to decide what license works for you.

FAIR USE

Fair use is a legal doctrine that allows the use of copyright-protected work in certain circumstances without direct permission or payment to the copyright owner. This doctrine provides a framework to determine whether a situation fall under Fair Use. To determine if your use of somebody else's copyrighted work falls under Fair Use, you need to examine the purpose of the use, the nature of the copyrighted work, the portion of the work used, and the potential effect on the market value of the work (more info on these criteria here). Common activities that fall under Fair Use are education, criticism, news reporting, and research.

Generally, using copyrighted work on your thesis submission would fall under Fair Use. On the other hand, if you decided to sell your work then you would potentially be in violation of copyright law as the purpose of the use would change from research or criticism (Fair Use) to commercial use (not Fair Use). However, if the work you are referencing has a CC license that allows you to use it for commercial use, you would not be in violation of copyright. If you cannot determine if your inclusion of a copyrighted work falls under Fair Use and you cannot locate a clear statement of use from the copyright owners, you will need to contact the owners directly to ask for permission or consider using an alternate work in the Public Domain or under a CC License.

Use this simple check list from the American Library Association to help you determine if your inclusion of other people's work into your project falls under Fair Use.

In addition to copyright and fair use, we encourage you to consider other creators' privacy and safety when using and sharing their work.