LibGuides: Affordable Course Materials and Open Educational Resources (OER): Creative Commons Licensing and Copyright

Creative Commons Licenses

Images and Photos made available under a creative commons license are free to use, with varying restrictions. Creative Commons licenses are not an alternative to copyright. They work alongside copyright and enable owners to modify copyright terms to best suit their needs.

You can search most image databases for creative commons licensed images.

Creative Commons Search

Open Attribution Generator

Attribution Browser Plugin

Image by Creative Commons - Creative Commons, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20727292

Digitization in an Emergency: Fair Use/Fair Dealing and How Libraries Are Adapting to the Pandemic

Digitization in an Emergency: Fair Use/Fair Dealing and How Libraries Are Adapting to the Pandemic
Like every other major institution operating during the coronavirus pandemic, research libraries are confronting sudden and radical shifts in their daily realities. Foremost among these challenges is the near-total loss of access to paper books and other physical library holdings.
Fair Use and Video Streaming by Carla Myers
The use of video as a part of course instruction is certainly nothing new. However, I would argue that the ways in which instructors and students desire to engage with video has changed substantially over the years.

To “use” a copyrighted work, you must either have the copyright holder’s permission, or you must qualify for a legal exception such as “fair use.” Fair Use is the legal, unauthorized use of copyrighted material, allowable under certain circumstances. Many educational and classroom use falls under fair use, but there are many images use cases that can be fair.

Fair use (Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright code) provides parameters for the legal use of copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright holder.

Four factors for determining fair use eligibility:

Purpose and character of use, including whether the use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes.
The nature of the copyrighted work.
The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the work as a whole.
The effect of the use on the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Public Domain

Public Domain Overview
Find Public Domain Images

Images in the Public Domain are no longer under copyright protection and can be used freely. In general images published before 1923 are in the public domain in the United States Learn more about copyright terms

There are four common ways that works arrive in the public domain:

the copyright has expired
the copyright owner failed to follow copyright renewal rules
the copyright owner deliberately places it in the public domain, known as “dedication,” or
copyright law does not protect this type of work. Learn more

The following databases and websites are great places to find public domain images, but be aware not all images found in these databases are in the public domain.

Carla Myers - Miami University CC Presentation

CC/Copyright Presentation
Carla Myers will be presenting at 2:30 on CCC, Open Educational Resources. Carla Myers is Assistant Professor and Coordinator of Scholarly Communications for the Miami University Libraries. Her professional presentations and publications focus on fair use, copyright in the classroom, and library copyright issues. She has a B.S. in Psychology from the University of Akron and a Masters in Library and Information Science from Kent State University. She has published books on Fair Use and Copyright Law. She was a Guest Expert for Fair Use Week at Harvard University https://blogs.harvard.edu/copyrightosc/2018/03/02/fair-use-week-2018-day-five-with-guest-expert-carla-myers/