"The Congress shall have Power To... Promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their Respective Writings and Discoveries."
— United States Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 8
Copyright law is found in Title 17 of the United States Code.
In addition to the full text of the Copyright Law of the United States, a great deal of additional information on copyright can be found on the website of the United States Copyright Office.
See, for example, Circular 1, Copyright Basics.
This is a guide to applying the concept of fair use when seeking to use third-party copyrighted materials in classroom settings.
In cases where fair use does not apply, alternatives are suggested, for example using materials that are open access, that have open licenses, or that are in the public domain. It is also possible to purchase a license to use a work.
While this may seem like a lot of information, there is even more about copyright law that we cannot cover. This guide is merely a starting point.
The goal of copyright law is to promote the progress of science and the useful arts. Copyright is a form of protection granted to authors that provides them, for a limited period of time, with certain exclusive rights. These rights are intended to encourage authors to create, thereby providing society with valuable works.
The limitation on the length of copyright (as well as other limitations such as fair use) balances the benefits of incentives for authors with the benefits of allowing the public to make use of copyrighted materials in a free and democratic society.
A YouTube video on Copyright Basics.
Copyright is a bundle of exclusive rights. A copyright owner has the exclusive right to do and to authorize others to do any of the following:
Copyright protection attaches automatically to original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression. Originality requires that the work was created independently (i.e. not copied from another) and that it embodies a minimum amount of creativity. To be fixed in a tangible medium of expression means that the work can be perceived either directly or by a machine or device such as a computer or projector.
Copyrightable works include the following categories:
These categories should be viewed broadly. For example, "literary works" includes novels, poetry, compilations, and computer programs. "Pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works" includes images, photographs, paintings, maps, charts, and architectural plans.
Certain types of works are not eligible for copyright protection. These include:
These works are in the public domain, meaning they are freely available for use without copyright restrictions.
In order to balance the needs of users with those of rightsholders and to preserve copyright's purpose to promote science and the useful arts, copyright law contains a number of exceptions.
For example:
Many of the exceptions in copyright law apply only to certain types of works under very specific conditions. The exceptions can be difficult to understand and apply without the advice of a lawyer.
In contrast, fair use is easier to understand, applies to all types of works, and is flexible. It is for these reasons that this guide recommends relying on fair use when deciding when and how to use (or not to use) third-party copyrighted material in online education.
This guide is adapted from the LibGuide "Fair Use and Copyright for Online Education" by Andrée Rathemacher, Julia Lovett, and Angel Ferria of the University of Rhode Island Libraries, available under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
Some materials for this LibGuide were sourced with permission from Copyright at USCF's LibGuide by Peggy Tahir.