School Projects Using Copyrighted Items
Many times it is legal to use copyrighted items for a school or class report.
This falls under an area of the law known as Fair Use. If your use
of copyrighted work is for:
teaching, scholarship or research
criticism or comment on a copyrighted work
news reporting
your use of copyrighted material may be considered fair use. This
will depend in addition upon on how much of a copyrighted work you use,
how important that part of the work is to the whole, and the effect of
your use upon the value or potential value of the copyrighted work.
If the rules for the project, for example an Odyssey of the Mind Competition, say you cannot use copyrighted material,
you can create or have someone else create images, or you can see if any
of these free public domain images will work
for you.
This information is provided with the understanding that the
author is not a lawyer and is not engaged in rendering legal services,
and makes no warranties or claims as to the accuracy or completeness of
the information. This is a summary and for brevity many exceptions to the
principles outlined have been left out. When working with legal issues,
you should always seek experienced professional counsel.
National Press Building, Suite 296, Washington DC 20045
Phone: 202-277-8985 Fax: 202-379-1704 E-Mail: Scott.Tambert@PDimages.com
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