Category - Media
Topic - Copyright
Issue - Copyright Resources and the Public Domain
Tiptoid -
Recently Raj and I produced a brochure on Copyright Guidelines (see our “Multimedia Tutorials”). Copyright is a material claimed by one or more people that is protected by law from use. We had visited several websites to get accurate information about Copyright Law for our brochure. Since then we have researched this topic further, and we would now like to share our newly acquired knowledge with you.
The most important thing to know about copyright is that just about everything is owned by one or more people, and if you're not sure who the owner is, look it up! Here are a few of many excellent websites and books that deal with the latest copyrights and copyright issues.
1) www.copyright.gov is the most informative website that we visited thus far. It explains the guidelines of copyrighting through a series of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). It also lists all the latest registered copyrights.
2) www.fcpsnet.fcps.edu/is/copyright is another resourceful website. It contains the guidelines of all key subjects of copyrighting - print materials, audio, video, and artwork.
3) www.copyrightkids.org is a more basic copyright resource for the younger audience, as well as for those less experienced in the copyrighting field.
4) Copyright for Schools: A Practical Guide by Carol Simpson is a book published in 2005 that describes copyrighting guidelines for both print media and digital media.
Now let's move on to the rules that apply to material that belongs in the public domain. No rights are claimed on materials in the public domain. Some materials are registered so that only some reproduction rights are reserved, and these agreements are sometimes called “public licenses,” but this is not the same as public domain.
Listed below are a few good resources for information regarding the public domain.
1) Library of Congress www.loc.gov – a vast collection of literature that spreads across all topics. A lot, but not all, of it is in the public domain
2) Creative Commons www.creativecommons.org/ – a free place to register your work with the rights that you do and don't want for redistribution
3) The Internet Archive www.archive.org – another large collection of all formats of media - literature, music, and images
With these resources in mind, all of your questions regarding copyright and public domain materials should be answered.
Glossary -
Copyright - a material claimed by one or more people that is protected by law from use
Public Domain - a material that can be used by anyone with several reserved rights
Find Out More -
www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
www.nps.gov/archive/yell/press/images/ www.commons.wikimedia.org
This web page contains links to one or more web pages that are outside the FCPS network. FCPS does not control the content or relevancy of these pages.
Submitted by - Raj Sheth and Chris Ricci
Site Manager - Chris Ricci
June 2007