01W-Madison Wells-Unit 3-Copyright and Fair Use

In this research I started with the simplest of questions, what is Copyright and what is Fair use. I

got these answers directly from the website Copyright.gov. As for copyright the answer I found

was “Copyright is a form of protection grounded in the U.S. Constitution and granted by law for

original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression. Copyright covers both

published and unpublished works. “[ CITATION Cop \l 1033 ] As for what is fair use this is the

answer, I found from the same website but from a different article. “a legal doctrine that

promotes freedom of expression by permitting the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works

in certain circumstances.”[ CITATION Cop20 \l 1033 ]

Now that you have a decent understanding of what these two terms mean I am sure you

are wondering how does this relate to me as a student? The answer is in the one thing every

teacher talks about no matter the class, plagiarism. By using any work that has a copy right it can

be considered stealing someone else’s work and if they have a copy right you can actually be

sued. Now it would take a miracle for an artist to figure out you used their work in a slide show

for class, but if they did find you it could end badly for you. The more common issue is people

who steal ideas and profit from them, once you start making a large profit you will be easy to

spot and therefore you could face prosecution for using someone else’s idea.

As with everything there are exceptions to these rules and one of them is for instructional

use. This means you can BARROW the works of other people as long as you give credit to them

for making it and do NOT claim it as your own. However, it does say you can use it for other

things such as parodies and News reports, yet again you cannot claim the original work as you

own. This is listed very nicely on Baylor University’s website “Fair use allows limited use of
copyrighted material without permission from the copyright holder for purposes such as

criticism, parody, news reporting, research and scholarship, and teaching.”[ CITATION Bay \l

1033 ]

To conclude my research I found that there are other instances where you may use

images once the Copy Right expires it becomes something called Public Domain and anyone is

free to use the work but again they cannot claim it as their own, but they no longer need written

permission from the artist in order to use it.

Works Cited
Baylor University. (n.d.). Using Copyrighted Material. Retrieved from Baylor University:
https://www.baylor.edu/copyright/index.php?id=56543#:~:text=Fair%20use%20allows
%20limited%20use,use%20is%20a%20fair%20one.
Copright.gov. (n.d.). Copy Right in General. Retrieved from Copyright.gov:
https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html
Copyright.gov. (2020, April). More Information on Fair Use. Retrieved from Copyright.gov:
https://copyright.gov/fair-use/more-info.html