Copyright is an important concept for teachers to understand. If not followed properly a person can get into severe legal issues. The first article called, Copyright 101, discusses Intellectual property, which incorporates copyrights. Intellectual property was created to encourage orginal creative thinking and products. Once a work has been created, it deserves to 1) be protected and compensated and 2) that the owner should be able to control how work is used. These works include the following: literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works such as, novels, poetry and motion pictures to name a few. Must be a tangible product.
Along with the copyright the owner is entitled to exclusive rights. The owner is entitled to having the authority to distribute and reproduce copies, prepare derivate works, transfer ownership, by either lease, rental or lending it, perform the work visually and to have a public display of work.
Another term to know is fair use, which goes on a case by case basis. This entitles users such as teacher to copy portions of the work for in class use, such as a reference for the teacher, or by the teacher distributing copies to his/her students. However, the whole work cannot be used, only a small portion.
The last term is Public domain which allows the user to free use because the copyright has expired or it was written by the U S federal government.
The second article entitled, What is Creative Commons, discussing a legal help that partners with the copyright. This is a free service that is a legal tool that anyone for the average user to the major corporation can and should use. It is stressed that this is not a substitute for a copyright, but used in addition to it. To obtain a licence is easy by simply visit their website and fill out the simple questionaire that only takes a few moments.
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