8.+Copyright+&+Plagiarism

Copyright and Intellectual Property - What is it OK to use and share online?
//The comments about copyright and education on this page relate to Australian copyright law - please check for your local legal obligations.// In Australia, it is acceptable for students (and teachers) to use material for educational purposes. It is not OK, however, to **//publish//** someone elses material. So while adding images to an assignment for class is OK, if you are making a class website, presentation, video etc you intend to put online, you would need permission before using the images (or music, videos etc). It is not that difficult to find material that is available for educational use, or even to ask special permission to use a particular image, so it's best to do it right the first time. [I dont want to go into general issues of piracy and intellectual property in non education contexts here, but I have included some relevant videos below.]

The usual rule (as previously applied to books and periodicals) of copying 10% still applies. You can also get your material from open sources, like those assigned as creative commons. There are websites available with photos, videos, music, sounds etc freely available for non commercial uses. You can also email the author and ask for permission. When creating a class website on Endangered Species a few years ago, I asked about 10 professional photographersfor permission for my students to use their photos. Only one declined the request, and he replied politely with his (very valid) reasons for doing so.

You will find links to some of those sites available at this link, Multimedia Resources. If you click on the image of any photos on Wikipedia, it will tell you what license it was used under. Many of these can be freely used for education.

When accessing material online for your research, students should keep a Bibliography of all the sites they have accessed material from. Please be aware that 'Google' or 'Google images' is NOT a source - they are search engines and it is important to record the actual website you take the material/information from. You can use this simple word document to record online sources. There are some good resources to help students understand copyright at Copyright Exposed and Copyright Kids. They relate to US Copyright Law, but the concepts are the same. media type="youtube" key="l5SmrHNWhak" height="349" width="560" align="center"

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