copyright+fair+use


 * Copyright and Fair Use Information and Links **

As an educator, you are a model. You model leadership. You model what it means to be a lover of learning. You also model ethics. One of the most important skills in using the Internet is to know how to use it ethically. The ethical use of the Internet is often called digital citizenship. Part of being a digital citizen means that you are aware of and respect copyrights on Internet images and music. Educators have a "fair use" to most Internet images as long as the images are used solely for educational purposes and not for commercial (profitable) purposes. Additionally, the image should not be altered in any way and attribute should be always given to the image creator or, alternatively, to the source where you found the image (if you can't identify the author).

Educators also have "fair use" to copyright music. So, if you are creating a digital story or multimedia presentation, you can legally use up to 10% of a musical composition in print, sound, or multimedia form. However, there are plenty of royalty free music sites on the Internet which allow you to legally use entire songs. Sites likewww.freeplaymusic.com and @http://www.royaltyfreemusic.com/free-music-resources.html offer a variety of musical genres. A simple Google search will help you identify other such sites. Please remember that even when you use royalty free music or "free music," you should still cite the musician(s) name(s) if given.
 * Music **


 * Images **

1.) When searching for images, go to Flickr.com/creativecommons. Creative Commons spells out exactly how an image can be used and how attributes should be given. In order to be completely sure and safe with copyright, I recommend starting your Flickr searches in the Creative Commons area of the Flickr site. Go to the following links for Creative Commons' Flickr images:
 * @http://www.flickr.com/commons/
 * @http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/

2.) Another category of images and created works is called "Public Domain." Images and music becomes part of the "Public Domain" in three ways:
 * 1) works published over 75 years ago
 * 2) work belonging to the public as a whole--government documents and works - you can find a lot of such images on this website: Library of Congress - American Memory:@http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html
 * 3) works with an expired copyright or no existing protection

Please be sure that you are careful when using images from search engines like Google Images. There is an important caveat. //If you search Google Images, there are a lot of images// //there which do have a copyright.// Yet, since Google is just a search engine, it doesn't always spell out which images have a copyright and which do not, so it usually goes with a generic line like, "there may be a copyright associated with this image." In that case, you have to do a some homework to find out if the image does have a copyright. Of course this takes extra time, but it is an important part of being a responsible digital citizen.

3.) Considering copyright issues, there is still a third option - which is to do a "Google Images" search (or using another search engine) BUT if you do this, keep the following information in mind. ** Because you are using these images for educational purposes and not personal gain and/or profit, you may use images that DO NOT contain a copyright on the image itself. ** <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">**If you do this, __you may use the image, only as long as you include a reference and link to the site you pulled the image from on the actual slide/page AND in your "end credits__."** If you do this, in your end credits (use APA as much as you can) I suggest, for clarity, that you don't include the actual website, but rather include the webpage information and link the text there. To illustrate, for [|THIS] image* (which doesn't have a copyright logo on it anywhere), here's how I would cite it in my end credits:

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Virginia General Assembly. (2013) [|"How a bill becomes a law in Virginia."] [image] Retrieved Feb. 6, 2013.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">*The on-slide/page citation should also be included. On the actual page, somewhere near the image, you should include "[|Virginia General Assembly]" with a link to the page.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Here's another example, connected to a vodcast about the history of women's hats which includes this image from a webpage (see - note the on-slide citation). Your end credits for this image would be something like (there are a couple of different ways to do this - here's one):

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Fanpop. (2013) [|Circusbambam99 "hats"] [image] Retrieved Feb. 7, 2013.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">4.) Using - WITH PERMISSION - images your friends/family/colleagues created/captured. Just like the example above, put their name(s) - first and last - on slide(s) in which their pictures show up, in addition to the end credits. Hypothetically, let's say you included an image of a wildflower bed I took last year. On the actual page, you should include my name and year in one of three ways: Erica Hamilton (2012) **OR** E. Hamilton (2012) **OR** if you don't have any other Hamilton citations, you could just put Hamilton (2012). As far as the end credits, I suggest citing it this way.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Hamilton, E. (2012). Wildflowers. [image]

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Please see the following "fair use" guides for more information regarding copyrights using web-based resources such as images and music.
 * <span style="color: #008000; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Fair Use Information **
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[]
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">@http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/curr280b.shtml
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education