- Washington County School District
- Copyright for School
Basic Copyright
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What is Copyright?Copyright is a Federal law that protects your work or anyone else's work from being copied, changed, or used without permission. In other words, when you create a story, poem, picture, or any other works, it belongs to you. Other people have to get permission to use it.What is Fair Use?Fair Use is a set of guidelines that allows you to use part of copyrighted works for educational purposes such as a report or multimedia presentation.Fair Use GuidelinesText:Up to 1000 words, but not more than 10% of the book or articlePoems:Up to 250 words or the entire poem if less than 250 wordsNo more than 3 poems by the same authorNo more than 5 poems in a collection of poetryPhotographs or Drawings:Up to 5 graphics or photographs by the same personNo more than 15 images from a collectionImages cannot be changed.Video:Up to 3 minutes but no more than 10% of the entire videoThe video clip cannot be changed.Music:Up to 30 seconds but no more than 10% of sheet musicUp to 30 seconds but no more than 10% of recordingThe music cannot be changed in any major way.Citations:Remember to cite your sources.Multimedia presentation must include a statement indicating fair use for educational purposes.Copyright information must be included in bibliography.If using online sites for information, check the copyright regulations. Some sites allow use of information without copyright infringement. If you have questions about a site, ask your teacher or the media specialist. They will be able to help you.The following links will provide more information
about copyright and general guidelines:
Creative Commons
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Creative Commons (CC) is an internationally active non-profit organisation that provides free licences for creators to use when making their work available to the public. These licences help the creator to give permission for others to use the work in advance under certain conditions.
Click here to understand more about Creative Commons
Public or government web sites will often allow educational use of their media. Check the site's Terms of Use to find out what is allowed. Several zoos and libraries offer media to students for projects.
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Images for Educators and Students
Lots of friendly images are located here. Many useful for science. -
Resources from the US Government
You may use these in your educational works. -
World Images Library
Here are all sorts of great visual images. -
Search for Media With Creative Commons Licensing
Here are several search engines that will filter your search by license. Follow the links to verify they do fall under CC licensing for your use. -
Royalty Free Music
From Kevin MacLeod. CC license attribution. -
Creative Commons Sites for Music
Here are several sites that allow you to use their music. -
Free Music Archive
Free downloads of music to use in projects. Remember to cite your source, please.