If you can read it, see it, hear it, or watch it -- it is likely copyrighted. Nearly all materials containing creative expression enjoy automatic protection under today's law. The scope of protected materials is vast: websites, music, film, video, software, ring tones, books, journals, magazines, newspapers, photographs, paintings, sculptures, house designs, and the list grows by each new creation, technology, and format. Making an copyrighted work is simple, making a creative work is much harder.

You should think "COPYRIGHT" when you are using (i.e. pasting, cutting, inserting, including, reproducing, grabbing, capturing) someone else's work in creating your video, sound, and sensory explosion masterpiece. Copyright mostly prohibits copying copyrighted works, but also equally prevents distributing, making derivatives, and publicly performing or displaying them. Copyright also can govern some uses of DVD's and other encrypted works. You can find the law and other useful stuff on the U.S. Copyright Office website. Copyright law places responsibility (and liability) for complying with the law on you - the user of the copyrighted work.

“Fair use” is an important exception to the exclusive rights and may allow making of copies of copyrighted works in the absence of permission under limited circumstances and for narrow purposes, such as for learning and for creating your class assignments and provided that those assignments are not later posted to the open web. Posting materials on the open web can fundamentally change and severely limit fair-use possibilities. Securing permission to use a protected work is always yet another possibility.

The following links have information about copyright that you may find useful in understanding your responsibilities under copyright law. The answer to copyright issues is rarely simple and comes with some risk. These assorted websites raise a number of perspectives and compelling issues but the obligation to comply with the law is ultimately your obligation.

The law and other useful stuff...

• United States Copyright Office

Fair use and educational possibilities...

• Code of Best Practices for Fair Use in Online Video
• Copyright Advisory Office at Columbia University
• Copyright Crash Course, University of Texas Libraries
• Stanford University Libraries, Copyright and Fair Use
• UofL Copyright Permission Services

Permissions and copyright owner perspectives...

• Association of American Publishers (AAP)
• American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP)

• Copyright Clearance Center (CCC)
• Harry Fox Agency
• Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)
• Recording Association of America (RIAA)
  

To learn more about copyright, you can contact Dwayne K. Buttler, Evelyn J. Schneider Endowed Chair for Scholarly Communication, in University Libraries at the University of Louisville.