Intellectual Property FAQ

• Am I correct in telling my class that they may use photos and videos from U.S. and state government web sites in class presentations and papers if they provide visible reference to the source?  And, that all private web site must be queried for a release?

   Only one thing is impossible for God: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet. - Mark Twain

Am I correct in telling my class that they may use photos and videos from U.S. and state government web sites in class presentations and papers if they provide visible reference to the source?  And, that all private web site must be queried for a release?

Nothing is ever that simple!! Certainly nothing to do with copyright. One thing up front: citing where the images come from has nothing to do with copyright. Copyright restricts the right to make the copy. The citation is an intellectual honesty issue. If you're infringing, all the citation might do is tell the claimant that you knew where you were stealing it from.

In general, the U.S. government does not copyright anything. I think it would be safe to use images from U.S. government web sites unless there is a prohibition. I've never thought about state governments, but since copyright is a federal law I assume state's may well copyright their products. In fact, I just visited the NC travel site, visitNC.com, and found it very much copyrighted. Often the symbol and statement are at the bottom of the main page. I would leave state and local governments in the category of general sites.

You don't necessarily have to have permission to use images from other sites. Some may give clear permission. And, there's "fair use," especially in a nonprofit educational environment (depends on whether it's a student paper that won't see the light of day or a campus PR campaign, for example).

I think the best thing you can do if you have the time is introduce your students to the issue of intellectual property and how to make a "fair use" decision. Hopefully, you'll find lots of good info at the campus copyright site. Among other things, you and your students might want to look at:

• U.S. Copyright Office. Reproduction of Copyrighted Works by Educators & Librarians
• UNC Fair Use Worksheet

These and other links are on the sub-page, Intellectual Property Information. There are several links to other tutorials that you could even assign to your students to work on outside on their own.