Copyright laws Internet
What students must know to use the 'net

Many people incorrectly assume that anything they find on the Internet is in the public domain and can be safely copied and shared.

Legally, what would be copyright infringement if the material is taken from a print publication is also a copyright infringement if the material is taken from an Internet publication. The same penalties apply regardless of where the copyrighted material was taken from.

Pickup in the parking lot analogy

A pickup truck in a municipal parking lot is the best analogy I can think of to explain copyright laws when Internet sources are used.

Let's say Homer the Hometown Handyman parks his pickup truck full of tools in the municipal parking lot. The tools are sitting out where anyone can take them.

Since the pickup truck full of tools is out in the open in the publicly owned parking lot does that give you the right to take one of Homer's saws without his permission? No, it does not.

Would it be OK for you to use one of Homer's saws without his permission if you were going to use it to do a job for your church or some other not-for-profit organization? No, it would not.

The written content, images, music, and computer programs you find on the Internet are the intellectual property equivalent of Homer's saws. The fact that they are "parked" in clear public view on the Internet doesn't make them public property.

What does using material mean?

Like many other terms in the English language arts curriculum, using material has a different meaning within the context of a discussion of copyright laws than it has in everyday conversation.

Let's go back to the pickup truck analogy. If you were to take one of Homer's saws and try it out on your kitchen table, you would say you had used the saw.

Similarly, if you found on the Internet Homer's article on how to use a handsaw, downloaded it, and read it on your computer, you'd probably say you had "used that material."

In the normal conversational sense of the them use, you did use Homer's material. However, you did not used Homer's material in the legal sense of the term as it applies to intellectual property.

What changes what we conversationally call "using material" into a situation that falls under copyright laws? When the Internet is the information source, the trigger is sharing the material you copied with someone else. If you let someone else see or hear copyrighted information, you are using it.

In other words, in the eyes of the law you use Homer's article if you do such things as:

• Attach a copy to an email you send to someone.

• Insert a copy of Homer's photograph of a handsaw into your research paper about tools.

• Quote information from Homer's article in a term paper you are writing.

• Paraphrase information from Homer's article in a term paper you are writing.

• Summarize information from Homer's article in a term paper you are writing.

Please note my list doesn't include all possible ways of using written material, just a few common ones.

Implications for students

Students can save to their computer or a storage device materials for their personal study or research without violating copyright.

However, students must not share all or part of that information with anyone else without giving credit to their source. It they use even a small portion without appropriate credit they are guilty of plagiarism.

If they use a larger portion without prior permission they are guily of infringing copyright laws; whether Internet or non-Internet sources were copied makes no difference.