Copyright Basics
Ever since the surge of lawsuits involving Napster and other file/music sharing networks, copyright issues have been a hot topic in the media. More recently, the lawsuits that publishing companies have pursued against universities over digital content has made it increasingly important that the average citizen have a better understanding of copyright law and the fair use doctrine. In part, this is due to the nature of internet technologies that have made the ability to share, copy, and distribute a variety of media much more accessible—all it takes is a computer, a mouse, and an internet connection to cut, copy, paste, and share. This can easily lead to copyright infringement. Infringement occurs when someone who does not own a copyright uses one of the exclusive rights afforded to the copyright owner without the owner’s permission. Possible infringements might include sharing or downloading music, movie, and data files; copying software or text; making photocopies; and engaging in most acts of plagiarism.
Copyright owners hold the following exclusive rights (Armatas, 2008, p. 55):
- To reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords;
- To prepare derivative works based thereon;
- To distribute copies or phonorecords to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by renting, leasing, or lending;
- In the case of literary, musical, dramatic, or choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the work publicly;
- In the case of literary, musical, dramatic, or choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the work publicly.
Keep in mind that copyright law protects almost all works that include text, images, audiovisual recordings, and other materials published on the internet, regardless of whether or not a copyright notice has been added to the website. It is incorrect to believe that something posted on the internet is automatically public domain.
The following links and pages give an overview of the guidelines for using copyrighted works. After browsing the pages and links, please take the test in the last link. If you receive a score of 100%, you will be given certification for copyright compliance.
Click a title to expand.
- University of Texas Copyright Crash Course
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- University of Texas Copyright Crash Course
- This is a copyright course developed by Georgia Harper for the UT system. Should you not have time to read through the entire course, please click on the “Crash Course tutorial” link under the JUMP TO menu. You will get an abridged version of the crash course through this tutorial.
- Copyright Clearance Center information
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- Copyright Clearance Center information
- Clicking on this link will bring you to a login page. Enter in your UTEP username and password. This will bring you to the UT system’s page on our agreement with the Copyright Clearance Center.
- Lisa Borden at
is our point of contact for information about UTEP’s license. Sue Phillips at
, or Steve Rosen at ">
are additional contacts within the UT system.
- UT System Copyright Policies
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- UT System Copyright Policies (This is for works that you create.)
- Avoiding Plagiarism
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- Avoiding Plagiarism (From the Purdue Online Writing Lab. Used with permission.)
- Copyright Test
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- Copyright Test
- To receive your certification, after completing the test with a 100%, take a screen shot of your results and save it to your computer. Then, send an email with the file attachment of your screen shot to
. Upon receipt, we will send you your certificate of copyright compliance training.
Copyright Certification Compliance - To receive your certification, after completing the test with a 100%, take a screen shot of your results and save it to your computer. Then, send an email with the file attachment of your screen shot to