For Students
Have you incorporated some or all of another's work in new works that you have created? For example, used movie clips in an online video or music as background for your own images? Did you feel that you needed permission from the copyright owner to do so? If not, was it because you weren't making any money from the use or you felt it was free advertising for the copyright owner? Perhaps you thought it was acceptable as long as you gave proper credit or attribution. Or maybe you thought the work was in the public domain or your use would not hurt the owner because he or she was rich enough already? Any of this sound familiar?
If so, you are certainly not alone. All of these reasons (which are wrong) were documented in a survey done by American University's Center for Social Media and published in 2007 in The Good, The Bad, and The Confusing: User-Generated Video Creators on Copyright.
While the survey received many interesting responses from university students, the conclusion was no surprise: There is a significant need "for better general understanding of the use rights of creators." [referring to copyright use rights.] Although our site can provide you with that better general understanding of the use rights of creators, I suspect I can do little about your sense of morality or ethics concerning the taking of other's material, such as music and movies. For some interesting reading on that subject, read Students School David Pogue on the New Copyright Morality . In particular, if you wish to understand this generational divide better, read Pogue's Post on this, especially the comments that have come in.
On this site you will find reliable, understandable information on copyright. Whatever your motivation for visiting this site, a basic understanding of copyright - not only what you can't do but, more importantly, what you can do - will only help you in your academic career at NC State as well as your future endeavors.
The best place to start is with the Copyright Basics Tutorial followed by the Using Copyrighted Works Tutorial. They are brief, to the point, and may dispel some of the misinformation you might have gathered along the way.
This site is for informational purposes only; it does not track or report copyright infringers and is not a source of legal advice. For students, the primary topics of concern appear to be plagiarism and appropriate use of university computer resources. In the interests of placing copyright information for NC State students in a central location, the following links are provided:
• NC State's Copyright Infringement site
• NC State's Open Letters on Illegal Files Sharing
• ResNet's Information on P2P File Sharing
• Copyright Information for all incoming students (2007, cd format)
• Computing @ NC State newsletter (student focused)