Embedded Files
It is vital that good digital citizens understand ownership and use rules of online materials. Because of the easy access to text or photos online, it is often easy to illegally obtain and use these materials as your own.
It is vital that good digital citizens understand ownership and use rules of online materials. Because of the easy access to text or photos online, it is often easy to illegally obtain and use these materials as your own.
Copyright
Copyright is the right of the creator of certain content to determine how and when the work may be copied. Copyright law is too vast to go through every detail on this website; however, I will focus on copyright in the educational environment. Copyright is attached to items that can be produced in a tangible form, such as text, photos, videos, and live productions (What Is a Copyright?, n.d.). Many works used in education are copyrighted. Text books, literature works, workbooks, educational videos, photos, sheet music, and theatrical productions are all examples of items that may be copyrighted in the school environment. By these items having a copyright, the author of the content has the right to determine how the work is reproduced. This right is often centered around payment for the work. If you purchase a body of work, there is most likely a copyright attached to the item. For example, if a teacher purchases a book that has a copyright, the teacher cannot make copies of the entire book for the entire class to avoid purchasing a book for each student. The teacher may use portions of the book, see Fair Use below, but he/she may not photocopy every page to avoid purchasing additional books.
Copyright Resources
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the obtaining and using of someone else's work (photos, text, ideas, etc) and claiming it is your own. The most obvious example of plagiarism is finding an essay online, copying it, pasting it into a "new" document, and submitting it as your own work. In my opinion, one could argue that this type of incident could be classified as cheating more so than plagiarism because of the intentional act of not doing one's own work to save time or effort. The act of plagiarism, however, can also be committed unintentionally. Young students often think that rewording someone else's words makes the use of the material acceptable. While the student may not have copied the text verbatim, the ideas in the text do not belong to that student. The student must give credit to the author for his/her ideas, they do not belong to the student. If the student uses the ideas and fails to cite the source, the student has plagiarized the work. See the Easybib.com resource on this page for more information on how to cite sources.
Plagiarism.org suggests the following steps to avoid plagiarizing when writing a paper (Preventing Plagiarism when Writing, n.d.):
- Properly Prepare Your Paper
- Ask your instructor if you have any questions about your paper or plagiarism
- Take time to prepare to write your paper; make an outline; make a plan on which sources you will use and how you will use then
- Develop good note taking habits to easily identify material you want to use and to identify information needed for proper citation
- Create Your Own Paper
- If you are unsure if you need to cite a source, cite it; not knowing if you should cite or not is not an excuse for plagiarism
- Be clear in your sentence phrasing to avoid confusion on who said what; it should be clear which are your ideas and which belong to others
- Practice proper paraphrasing; changing words around does not make it your idea
- Vet your resources and only use reputable websites; make sure you are not citing plagiarized work
Plagiarism Resources
WriteCheck , 6 Ways to Avoid Plagiarism in Research Papers (http://en.writecheck.com/ways-to-avoid-plagiarism/)
University of Toronto, Ways to Avoid Plagiarism (http://advice.writing.utoronto.ca/using-sources/how-not-to-plagiarize/)
Learn more on how to cite sources at EasyBib.com (http://www.easybib.com/reference). Easybib.com and other similar sites have the guidebooks for the most common formats used in research.
Fair Use
When it comes to using copyrighted materials, it is not always the case that you are prohibited from using or replicating the materials. Copyrighted materials can be used without specific permission from the rights holder in a limited number of ways, referred to as fair use.
An article by Brian Farkas on Nolo.com helps one understand fair use (Farkas, 2011):
- Criticism and Commentary - This allows one to post or publish publicly part of a copyrighted work in order to criticize or make comments on the copyrighted work.
- News Reporting - Journalists are allowed to quote political speeches or addresses without obtaining permission from the person giving the speech. The quote or speech must still be cited by the author.
- Research and Scholarship - When conducting research using copyrighted material, the researcher may use portions of the copyrighted material to assist the reader in understanding the researcher's ideas and commentary.
- Nonprofit Educational Use - Educators are allowed to make a reproductions (i.e. photocopies) of a small amount of copyrighted materials for educational purposes. The teacher may not reproduce the entire work to avoid purchasing additional copies.
- Parody - A comedian may use parts of a work that is copyrighted in order to produce his/her comedy. In music, this often happens when the song's sound track is used with different comedic lyrics. The comedian is not infringing on the song writer's rights.
Fair Use Resources
Engadet article on recent US court ruling on fair use (https://www.engadget.com/2018/07/03/us-court-rules-online-photos-fair-use/)
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