Plagiarism, Copyright and Fair Use How To Be Legal and Ethical in a Digital World!

What About Copyright? You may be aware that US Copyright law protects works for a certain period of time (let's say 100 years for the sake of argument). After this, the works are in the public domain. This means that anyone can publish them without paying royalties but they still have to acknowledge the source. And whether you are using Plato, Josephus, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, Emerson, Chesterton, T.S. Eliot or e.e. cummings, you must cite your sources. If you cite a long passage in your paper, and the work is still under copyright, you will need to get the permission of the copyright holder to do it.

What is ‘fair use’ and how does it apply to me? Fair use is an exception to copyright in certain situations. To decide on fair use you have to look at:  Is the purpose nonprofit such as education?  Could you have used an alternative?  How much of the work did you use?  Are you costing the creator money?

CONFU : The Conference on Fair Use Motion Media  Up to 10% or 3 minutes, whichever is less, Text Material  Up to 10% or 1000 words, whichever is less,  An entire poem of less than 250 words may be used, but no more than three poems by one poet, or five poems by different poets from any anthology  For poems of greater length, 250 words may be used but no more than three excerpts by a poet, or five excerpts by different poets from a single anthology may be used. Music, Lyrics, and Music Video  Up to 10%, but in no event more than 30 seconds, of the music and lyrics from an individual musical work Illustrations and Photographs  a photograph or illustration may be used in its entirety but no more than 5 images by an artist or photographer  photographs and illustrations from a published collective work, not more than 10% or 15 images, whichever is less,

Things to Think About...  How many of you have posted pictures you found on Google images (or another image search engine) on a social networking or messaging page  How many of you have posted music on your personal pages?  Is this a violation of copyright?  Have any of you been contacted and asked to remove copyrighted material from your page? ALWAYS REMEMBER! COPYRIGHT IS AUTOMATIC, EVEN IF IT ISN’T STATED!

Remember!  Fair use only applies to projects for school and not for your personal use of media!  Fair use only covers school projects that stay in school. As soon as they are publicly displayed you must adhere to copyright!  Even if you are covered by fair use you should credit every source of information, pictures, video, music and sound in your work!

PLAGIARISM AND HOW TO AVOID IT Plagiarize \'pla-je-,riz also j - -\ vb -rized; - riz·ing vt [plagiary] : to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (a created production) without crediting the source vi: to commit literary theft: present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source - pla·gia·riz·er n FROM: Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary 9th ed, (Springfield, Ma: Merriam 1981, p. 870).

EXAMPLE I word-for-word plagiarism When material is taken directly from a book, article, speech, statement, remarks, the Internet, or some other source, the writer must provide proper attribution.

I thought I can use someone's words if I reference or cite the source. cite You can. Direct quotes from other sources are acceptable in your work however you must give credit to the source both in the work and in the bibliography at the end of the work. This is called a citation.

How Do I Cite A Quote? If you are using a word-for-word, literal quotation, you have to put the passage you are quoting in quotation marks and you must put the source in parentheses following the quote.

If it is a long passage--more than three lines of text in your paper--you should start a new line and indent, putting the citation at the end of the paragraph. These two ways are the only acceptable methods for indicating quoted material

What about pictures, cound clips, movie or video clips?  All other forms of media used must be cited at the point of use. (

EXAMPLE II the paraphrase Even if the author’s exact language is not used, a citation is required for material that is paraphrased.

What Is a Paraphrase, Anyway? Paraphrase is stating someone else's ideas in your own words. Yes, you do have to cite sources, even for paraphrase. When you are writing the paper, think about the reader. If you can imagine the reader saying: "what was the source of that idea?" then you should cite it, even if you rewrote it in your own words.

EXAMPLE III the mosaic Even though your paper includes some original material, selected phrases of the original sources are woven throughout the passage – a little bit from here, a little bit from there.

EXAMPLE IV the “apt phrase” Your writing is almost entirely original, but a phrase is taken directly from the source.

Even though you use only a short phrase or several phrases, they must have quotation marks around them and be cited if they are taken directly from the source. Only phrases that have truly become part of general usage can be used without citation.

What You Should Do To Avoid Plagiarism continued You should  only add quotes when they are necessary to acknowledge others' thoughts and to present evidence that helps your argument  write your papers from scratch, starting with a blank screen. Don't cut and paste from various documents.  make sure each passage is properly cited if you do cut and paste a little.  do the citation work at the time of writing instead of leaving it for the end.

What you should do to avoid plagiarism: You should:  print before you start writing and use the printout like you would a book. At least then cutting and pasting is not so convenient.  really think about what you are reading.  outline your paper to reflects the conclusions you are drawing.  write in your own words and never cut and paste unless you will be citing it..

Be realistic about what you are doing. If you are doing a lot of cutting and pasting, chances are you are not writing a very good paper.

I Really Didn't Do It! You can prove you didn’t plagiarize if:  you can show your drafts, the notes you took, and any other materials you used in writing the paper.  you can talk convincingly about the material in the paper, including things you decided to leave out, why you made the argument the way you did, how the writings you cited fit into the paper, where you found those writings, etc. So keep your notes and learn the material well.