You automatically have a copyright on anything you create as soon as you save it to disk. You don't have to register or put on a copyright notice (but see "Extra Protection" below). Copyright gives you the right to keep others from using your work, with some exceptions:

Exceptions to Standard Copyrights

• You can copyright words, images, or other expressions, but not ideas.
• If someone else later creates the same thing you did, they are free to publish it, as long as they created it independently.
• If you create something as an employee, the copyright belongs to the employer, not to you.
• Fair use of copyrighted material is allowed.
• Works created before 1923 are in the public domain (not protected by copyright.) The law gets complicated for works created after 1923. For example, material created between 1923 and 1978 but not published is also in the public domain. Most other works are still protected by copyright and will be for a long time.

Ideas Are Not Copyrighted

Ideas are covered by patent law, not copyright law. Some types of ideas are patentable, others aren't, but unlike copyrights, patents are expensive and difficult to obtain.

If you make a website extolling the virtues of Rock-Paper-Scissors as an intermural sport and other people make sites with the same theme, they have that right. But if they copy part of your text word for word or display the images of hand positions you so carefully scanned, they are infringing your copyright.

Fair Use Under Copyright Law

Fair use is an extremely fuzzy area of the law. Use for scholarship, education, or criticism is generally okay, if done in moderation. Use for profit or which keeps the author from making as much profit is frowned upon. But newspapers and magazines are printed for profit, and fair use often protects them as well.

Extra Copyright Protection

If you put a copyright notice on what you write, infringers can't claim that they didn't know it was copyrighted. It also gives you more protection internationally.

If you want to sue someone for using your material, you first need to register with the U. S. Copyright Office. If you register within three months of publishing, you can collect a lot higher damages. It only costs $30 to register and just involves filling out a form and sending a copy of your work.

When You Want to Use Someone Else's Work

Making Copies

Web browsers copy webpages from the server to your computer in order to display them. By the nature of the web, you are already implicitly given permission to copy the material. If you want to save it on your hard drive and look at it later, that's also fair use.

Using Copied Material for Student Projects

As a student, it is tempting to borrow images other people have created for your own projects. As long as what you create isn't publicly accesible, this would likely fall under fair use. Make sure, though, to give clear attribution so that your professor is aware what you created and what you copied. If you don't, you could fail the course or even get expelled.

Getting Permission to Publish Copied Material

Suppose you wanted to publish a paper in the student journal about good web design. Your paper uses a lot of screenshots of www.skinnywhite.com because you admire the site design so much. You should email the webmaster of skinnywhite.com and ask for permission to use the screenshots.

Explain—

• who you are
• what you will be using the images for
• whether you will be making any money from the images

They should write back to you and say either yes or no, or give you the name of someone else you need to contact for permission. When you write the paper, properly attribute your sources.

Some Copyright Advice

It doesn't matter whether the courts would find a particular use of copyrighted material illegal. Fighting the lawsuit would be so expensive that you really want to avoid going to court over it at all. So eliminate the risk of a suit by always getting permission before you use others' material.

Links

Copyright Basics—US Copyright Office
Specifics about copyright law and registration
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html

Copyright in Visual Arts
An explanation for those working with images
http://www.piercelaw.edu/tfield/copyVis.htm#Intro

Copyright on the Internet
An explanation for those publishing on the web
http://www.fplc.edu/tfield/copynet.htm