what is copyright?
Before I go any further let’s get one thing absolutely clear. I am not a lawyer and I am not an expert in copyright law. Nothing I a say here should be taken as legal advice. Pay for a lawyer.
Whenever you take a photo, write a poem, create a work of art or produce a website you own the copyright for whatever you have created. Ownership of the copyright may be time limited but during that period you make decisions on how that creation is used. No one should use or copy any part of your creation without your permission.
What is copyleft
copyleft is a play on copyright showing that it is in many ways the opposite situation that you find with copyright. It’s the modern practice of letting people freely use software, images even writing without the need to seek permission. In many instances you’re even allowed to modify and distribute this as your own work.
Creative Commons.org
What is fair use?
Fair use is enshrined in US copyright law, and the laws of many other countries, allowing someone to use copyrighted material without the need for permission to be granted or for any payment to me made.
Unfortunately, many people think this allows them carte blanche to use images and content from pretty much any source. You really do need to understand that you really can only use it under certain fairly limited situations:
first off you can only use brief excerpts. Exactly what this means is not really fully explained but common sense says that using 50% of somebody’s work that is not a brief excerpt. What you’re really looking at is a short quote and even then I would suggest that you need to qualify and explain the quote and its relevance to justify using it.
The second thing that you have to get your head rind is that you can use it for the purposes of criticism, news reporting, teaching and research. Again this is significantly limiting what you can use it for. Let’s take a look at a couple of examples.
You need to be absolutely clear that this does not allow you to use huge chunks of somebody else’s work for your website. Neither does it give you permission to use photographs or other images that you find on the Internet. Quite possibly the majority of material and media will be subject to copyright. So to be safe always ask for permission and be prepared to be denied. MoveOn there’s plenty of material available so you should be able to find something somewhere else.
DMCA