Copyright and Fair Use For Education Professionals by Trustee Library
Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States to authors. The owner of copyright has the exclusive right to do and authorize the following:
Copyright protection covers both published and unpublished works as well as out-of-print materials.
Facts, ideas, procedures, processes, systems, concepts, principles or discoveries cannot be copyrighted. However, some of these can be protected by patent or trade secret laws.
Copyright protection currently lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years. If there is more than one author copyright protection lasts for the life of the last author's death plus 70 years. Copyright protection for materials created by a business may last for 95 years from publication.
More information can be found in this PDF from the U.S. Copyright Office.
Film historian, Eric Faden from Bucknell University created a documentary short about copyright and fair use using clips from the Walt Disney Company's animated features.
From Creative Commons, "If you’re looking for content that you can freely and legally use, there is a giant pool of CC-licensed creativity available to you. There are hundreds of millions of works — from songs and videos to scientific and academic material — available to the public for free and legal use under the terms of our copyright licenses, with more being contributed every day."
