Plagiarism—Graduate Level Module 3: Copyright Infringement and Fair Use
1. Copyright is a federal law that protects the creators of all kinds of content—text and multimedia—for a limited period of time.
2. You may have seen a copyright symbol on books and other items. This means someone registered their work with the U.S. Copyright Office.
3. However, since 1989, a work no longer has to be registered to be protected by copyright.
4. For example, as soon as you’ve written and sent an email, it’s protected by copyright. This is because it’s "fixed in a tangible medium of expression." In the case of an email, this would be your computer’s random access memory.
5. “Copyright infringement” means to use someone else’s creation—even an email— without their permission.
6. There have been several very public cases of copyright infringement:
a. Google Books is currently being pursued in the courts by both authors and governments for digitizing and posting their content without permission.
b. Napster, the online file sharing site, was shut down by court order for allowing users to download MP3 files in violation of the artists’ copyright.
7. The consequences of copyright infringement include:
a. Paying the actual dollar amount of damages and profits
b. Fines ranging from $200 to $150,000
c. Court injunctions to stop the infringement
d. Imprisonment
8. And it’s not just large corporations that suffer penalties.
9. For example, research that you do on the Internet may be free. But as soon as you print it and include it in a report or business plan, you may be infringing on a copyright. If you've used it for commercial gain, the rightful owner could sue for damages.
10. With one important exception, you should assume that every work is protected by copyright unless you can establish that it is not. That exception is called Fair Use. 11. In its most general sense, Fair Use is any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and "transformative" purpose such as to comment upon, criticize or parody a copyrighted work.
12. There are four rules of thumb to determine if something falls under Fair Use:
a. The use, whether it is for a commercial or nonprofit educational purpose.
b. The nature of the copyrighted work. Generally, using excerpts from nonfiction works is more easily proved to be fair use because sharing factual information benefits the public.
c. The amount used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole. Usually, the less of a work you use, the easier it is to prove that it was fair use.
d. The effect of the use upon the potential market for the copyrighted work. If you are depriving the author of income, it will be more difficult to prove fair use.
13. Generally, anything you use for a class assignment falls into the Fair Use category and copyright infringement isn’t a concern.
14. But outside of class, the good habits you learned at school about crediting your sources can protect you from lawsuits and fines.
15. Plagiarism, copyright infringement and fair use are a complex mix of ethics and the law. But it comes down to that oldest of aphorisms: give credit where credit is due.
16. To finish this tutorial, please complete the Quiz (http://tutorials.sjlibrary.org/tutorial/plagiarismtoc/quiz.htm)
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