Gangwish Library: Copyright Resource Guide: Copyright: Where do you start?

Starting out...

What resources are you using to write papers? With students in the classroom?

Remember that everything on the Internet is not public domain. See the Public Domain Research Guide for more information about that. If you are specifically interested in plagiarism, See our Plagiarism Guide

Are you using a book, periodical or website?

If so, you must list them in your references/bibliography and cite authors whose information you are using in your papers or presentations

Do you need to make photocopies out of books, periodicals or websites?

If so, start out by looking at our “What is Fair Use?” Research Guide which links to fair use guidelines

Are you using media in your classroom or on blackboard?

See the Research guide on this website about “Copyright and Blackboard”

Guidelines for lawfully acquired copyrighted works that can be used according to Fair Use as indicated by the US Copyright Office:

Books and Media	Amount Suggested to meet Fair Use
Video	Up to 10% or 3 minutes or less
Text Interlibrary Loan Articles	Up to 10% or 1000 words or less 1 chapter out of 10 chapter book No more than 3 articles per year from the same periodical title No more than 1 article per periodical issue
Music/Lyrics/Music Video	Up to 10%, but no more than 30 seconds
Illustrations/Photographs/Images	No more than 5 images from a single artist; 10% of a published collective works, but no more than 15 works
Data Sets (databases)	Up to 10% or 2500 fields, whichever is less

Guidelines for Evaluating Copyright Materials

Purpose

Favors Fair Use	Opposes Fair Use
Classroom/scholarly/research	Commercial/Profit
Non-Profit	Entertainment
Criticism/Comment/Parody	Creator not credited
Transformative

Nature

Favors Fair Use	Opposes Fair Use
Published work	Unpublished Work
Factual/non-fiction	Creative/Artistic
Important to educational objective	Fiction

Amount

Favors Fair Use	Opposes Fair Use
Small Quantity	Large portion or whole work used
Portion not central to entire work	Using most significant portion of work

Effect

Favors Fair Use	Opposes Fair Use
User purchased original copy of work	Could replace sale of work
One or few copies made	Numerous copies made
No significant effect on the market for the work	Impairs market potential of the work or derivatives
No similar product marketed (such as – no individual electronic chapter of the book is available for purchase)	Portion used could be easily purchased
Restricted Access	Posted to open web
	Repeated or long-term use