Plagiarism

Copyright is a form of protection provided by the Congress of the United States to the authors of "original works of authorship," including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works.

See UK's Copyright Resource Center

What Is Fair Use?

• "Fair Use" allows the use of copyrighted materials under certain circumstances.
• Stanford University Libraries has a great article on the four different factors for determining fair use.
• Many countries allow for fair use of images.

Fair Use for Educational Purposes

• Fair Use for educational purposes is acceptable in the US and other countries. This usually covers the use of images in papers, presentations, and lectures.
• The use of images posted on open access sites may not be permitted by databases or museums.

What Can You Do?

• Always look for a statement of copyright or ownership.
• Always read the website's terms of use for images.
• Always cite the source.
• Contact the copyright owner, museum, website owner, etc., to determine if the image can be used for your project or if you have any questions concerning the use of an image

A public domain work is a creative work that is not protected by copyright and which may be freely used by everyone. The reasons that the work is not protected include:
(1) the term of copyright for the work has expired
(2) the author failed to satisfy statutory formalities to perfect the copyright, or
(3) the work is a work of the U.S. Government.