Copyright & Creative Commons

A look at copyright and how you can use copyright and Creative Commons in your documents. As we explore different licensing we will also look at search and different tools and preferences that you can use with OS X.

Unit Question

"What responsibilities do you have to respect others' creative work?"

Respecting Copyright

• What is something you’ve made that you’re proud of?
• Can you think of a time when you used someone else’s work in something you created?

• Why does Nicole want to share her writing online? What are the benefits for her?
• What are the risks of Nicole sharing her writing online?

Remember: once someone records an original idea, it is copyrighted. Copyright is a law that helps protect the rights of creators so they receive credit and get paid for their work. Most things you find, download, copy and paste from the Internet are copyrighted.

You can use things you find online as long as you:​

• check who created it​
• get permission to use it​
• give credit to the creator​
• buy it (if necessary)​
• use it responsibly

If you aren’t careful in how you use other people’s work online, you might be stealing.

It’s great to be able to use things we find online, but we have to do it responsibly. We have to show our respect for other people’s hard work and creativity by giving credit where credit is due.

Definitions

Creative Work	Any idea or artistic creation that is recorded in some form, whether it’s hard copy or digital.
Copyright	A law that protects your control over the creative work you make so that people must get your permission before they copy, share, or perform your work.
Creative Commons	A kind of copyright that makes it easier for people to copy, share, and build on your creative work[…]”
License	A clear way to define the copyright of your creative work so people know how it can be used.
Piracy	Stealing copyrighted work by downloading or copying it in order to keep, sell, or give it away without permission and without paying.
Plagiarize	Copying, “lifting,” or making slight changes to some or all of someone else’s work and saying you created it.
Public Domain	Creative work that’s not copyrighted and therefore free for you to use however you want.
Fair Use	The ability to use a small amount of copyrighted work without permission, but only in certain ways and in specific situations (schoolwork and education, news reporting, criticizing or commenting on something, and comedy/parody).​

Excerpt From: Mr Bertoia “Digital Literacy 6” iBooks.

Practice