HCPS Copyright

In today’s multimedia world teachers and students use graphics a lot. Most of these graphics (be they pictures, drawings or maps) were created by someone else. That’s where the specter of copyright raises its ugly head. But don’t worry, there are a number of things you can do without worrying about getting hassled, sued, or feeling guilty.

You can always use -

• ALL images you create (drawings, photographs, paintings etc.)
• ALL images in the public domain or those created with a Creative Commons license(click here for sources)
• ALL clipart
• ALL images from sites that permit educational use in their conditions of use
• ONE image scanned from a book
• ONE image from a web site as long as the image is not for sale
• Images downloaded from an online library resource to which HCPS subscribes (e.g. Grolier)
• An image you download and alter to create a parody

You can probably use-

• Multiple images from a single collection/source (e.g. book, web site)
• Multiple images by the same artist
• An image that is a digital reproduction of a public domain painting or photograph

You can NEVER use -

• An image clearly for sale from a site like Corbis
• Images representing more than 10% of a single collection/source (e.g. book, web site)
• More than five images by the same artist
• An image you download and then alter (for example, to remove a watermark) – unless the “conditions of use” permit alteration or you alter it to create a parody

Multimedia

Creating one product that uses music, pictures, and video really isn’t some magical different category. If you follow the rules for other categories of media when mixing them to create multimedia you’ll be fine.

Image credit Geishaboy500