|
Copyright Law -- The Rule
Intellectual Property: When you create a unique work -- the music or lyrics of a song, a story, a personal letter, a poem, a computer program, a web page, a piece of e-mail, a musical recording, a work of literature, a movie, an original floorplan, the choreography for a dance performance, and so forth -- you have created intellectual property.
- Intellectual Property: something you created with your mind that has commercial value, including written, artistic, and musical works.
Time and effort went into creating it, and no one should be able to claim your work as theirs, deface your work, or make money off of your work unless you say so. And because it is "property," you own it. You can keep it, prevent others from displaying it, give it away, sell it for a profit, and even leave it to your descendants in your will.
- Copyright: Copyright is a type of law that exists to protect intellectual property. Copyright -- the "right to copy" -- is an exclusive right. It excludes everyone except the person who owns the intellectual property.
The bare minimum requirements for copyright law to apply are that the work must be original, have exhibited some minimal level of creativity, and be in a fixed form of expression.
- Originality: You can't copyright something that has already been copyrighted or something you didn't create.
- Creativity: You can't copyright a phone book because it's just a list in alphabetical order, and thus required no creativity. You can't copyright a fact. You can't copyright a single word or a short phrase.
- Fixed Form: You can't copyright a dance performance that you haven't video taped. You can't copyright an idea that hasn't been written down or otherwise recorded.
If a piece of intellectual property meets all of these requirements, it is protected by law the moment it is created.
If you own the copyright to a work, only you may reproduce it, prepare derivative works of it, distribute copies of it, perform or display it publicly. No one else has these rights!
- Reproduce: photocopy an article; scan a photo; copy a CD; download a song; copy a computer game
- Prepare derivative works: make a movie from an existing screenplay; make a computer game from an existing story
- Distribute: give out free copies; sell copies; send via e-mail
- Perform in public: act a play out on stage, sing a song at a club, show a movie in a theater
- Display in public: hanging a picture in a public library, post a picture on a web page
When you see the phrase "All Rights Reserved" -- these are the rights that the copyright owner has and no one else does.
Of course, as the owner, you may authorize others to have these rights. You might sell your screenplay so it can become a movie. You might give one-time-only permission to perform your play in public. You have the right to set and charge fees for the use of the work, or to prohibit its display or performance entirely.
Copyright Law -- The Exceptions
Copyright law is very complex. It's made even more so by the fact that there are many exceptions and conditions. Here are some of them:
- Fair Use means that you can copy certain kinds of works, or portions of certain kinds of works, for personal use. If you go to the library and make a photocopy of a recipe from a cookbook, that's no problem, as long as you just keep the copy for yourself. Likewise, you can copy a poem from a book of poetry, a chapter from a book, and so on -- again, as long as it is for your own personal use. Another example of fair use is recording programs from TV or music from the radio, again only for your personal use. Most experts agree that downloading music for entertainment purposes as a replacement for buying it is not fair use.
- Educational Purpose: Teachers and students have special rights when in an education setting. Teachers can make copies of certain types of copyrighted materials for classroom use, as long as it's not too often and not too much of the work. Students can include copyrighted images, sounds, and videos in projects they create for school, as long as it's not too much of the work, and as long as there are only a limited number of copies of the final project available. If copyright-protected work is going to be made available to the general public (such as on a website), it is not covered under Fair Use.
- Public Domain: Some original, creative works in a fixed form are not protected under copyright. They are so old that they have passed to the public domain. No one can keep you from publishing a Bible, or one of the standard translations of Aesop's Fables. Really old songs from hundreds of years ago could be performed by any group for a profit. For a work created by an individual author, copyright extends for the life of the author plus 90 years. After that time, it passes into the public domain.
- Work for Hire: If you create an original work for a company that employs you in the course of your work duties, it belongs to the company, not to you.
- Parody: It's true that you cannot legally publish or perform a work that is derived from another copyrighted work. There's one exception to this: parody. Saturday Night Live and other comedy shows routinely stage parodies of popular movies, TV ads, and TV shows. They can get away with this without seeking permission from the copyright holder because parody is a specially protected form of derived work. Of course, to be protected the derived work has to actually be a parody. You can't just call it a parody and expect to get away with it.
**Now look at to the two charts above. See if your answers change now that you know about these important exceptions.**
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is different from copyright infringement. Plagiarism is taking someone else's work and claiming it as your own. If you use someone's exact words without putting them in quotes and giving credit, you've committed plagiarism. If you've paraphrased someone's work and haven't given credit, you've committed plagiarism. If you've included a photo or illustration in your report but didn't give credit, you've committed plagiarism.
Plagiarism, in itself, isn't illegal. But it is unethical. It can get you in trouble at school (for breaking the rules about Academic Honesty). It can get you in trouble at work (by giving you a bad reputation or getting you fired).
The most obvious type of plagiarism involves students using "copy and paste" to grab articles or parts of articles from the encyclopedia or from cheating websites, and then handing them in as if the students had written them. Fortunately, this type of cheating is very easy for teachers to track down. You must understand that this is completely unethical and against our school academic honesty rules.
Often, plagiarism and copyright violations go hand in hand. But it's possible to break copyright without plagiarizing. And it's possible to commit plagiarism with out breaking copyright. Weird, eh?
Example of committing plagiarism without violating copyright: Let's say you used Thomas Jefferson's exact words from some document he wrote, and didn't give credit. You didn't violate copyright because Jefferson's works aren't protected by copyright -- they're so old they're in the public domain. But you did commit plagiarism because you didn't tell anyone where you got all of those great words. You are letting people believe that you wrote them yourself.
Example of violating copyright without committing plagiarism: If you use a copyrighted illustration in a book, and did not receive permission to do so, you've committed copyright infringement even if you give credit for the picture. Giving credit keeps it from being plagiarism, but that won't keep you from getting fined in this case.
How to avoid plagiarism: In a school setting, one way to keep yourself from committing plagiarism is to cite your sources. If you quote someone's words, or if you paraphrase their ideas, make sure you list this in some sort of note (footnote or endnote), and list the work it came from in the bibliography. (See this page for how to make a bibliography). Another way to avoid committing plagiarism is to take notes in your own words. Avoid writing things down word-for-word from reference books and other sources.
|
|
Exhibits
Copyright Policy from MySpace:
| Copyright Policy. You may not post, modify, distribute, or reproduce in any way any copyrighted material, trademarks, or other proprietary information belonging to others without obtaining the prior written consent of the owner of such proprietary rights. It is the policy of MySpace.com to terminate Membership privileges of any Member who repeatedly infringes the copyright rights of others upon receipt of prompt notification to MySpace.com by the copyright owner or the copyright owner's legal agent. |
Waunakee Middle School Handbook: Check out the Academic Honesty section. It deals with plagiarism.
Creative Commons Website at http://creativecommons.org/ -- a place to find music, video, and other material that is normally protected by copyright, but to which the copyright owners have given up some or all of their rights so others can modify and/or distribute their works. If you want to get background music for a podcast you are recording, this might be a good place to start.
Just as with copyright-protect material, Creative Commons material does have some rules so be sure to read up on them! Here are four common Creative Commons rules you may encounter:
Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
No Derivative Works. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.
Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same, similar or a compatible license.
|
