Copyright
Copyright is a legal right created by law that gives the creator of an original work exclusive rights to its use and education.
Copy protection exists from the moment a work is created.
If you reproduce, republish, or redistribute something produced by someone else without the copyright holders permission, there is a good chance you are violating copyright law.
Fair Use
Fair use is used to describe situations where using someone else's work is allowed.
Fair use allows copyrighted material to be used for news reporting, research, and classroom instruction.
The four fair use factors are as follows:
The purpose and character of the use, including whether the use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
The nature of the copyrighted work, such as whether the work is fiction or non-fiction, published or unpublished;
The amount of the work used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole, such as using a poem in its entirety, or using one chapter from a long book;
The effect of the use upon the potential market for the copyrighted work
Creative Commons
Creative Commons licenses give users the freedom to:
Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format.
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose.
-creativecommons.org
Public Domain
When a work is in the public domain, it is free for use by anyone for any purpose without restriction under copyright law. Public domain is the purest form of open/free, since no one owns or controls the material in any way.
Creative Commons licenses do not affect the status of a work that is in the public domain under applicable law, because our licenses only apply to works that are protected by copyright.
-wiki.creativecommons.org
