Copyright Resources: Links and Documents

American University's Center for Media & Social Impact has a series of "Best Practices" for a variety of Fair Use situations

A flow chart designed to guide you in thinking about the use of materials and copyright use choices.

Put together by the Association of Research Libraries, this is a good look at the history of copyright and the key cases involved in crafting and revising the laws.

A five-art series going deeper into the intersection of copyright, fair use, and education

Created by the University of Delaware, this online tool will guide you through the fair use process, and help you determine if your materials meet the threshold.

Housed at the Cornell Law School, While we do not offer legal advice, the LII develops systems that allow users from outside the legal profession to more easily access and understand the laws that govern them. This link is for the sections on Copyright.

The public domain is the realm of material—ideas, images, sounds, discoveries, facts, texts—that is unprotected by intellectual property rights and free for all to use or build upon. Our economy, culture and technology depend on a delicate balance between that which is, and is not, protected by exclusive intellectual property rights. Both the incentives provided by intellectual property and the freedom provided by the public domain are crucial to the balance. But most contemporary attention has gone to the realm of the protected. The Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School is the first university center in the world devoted to the other side of the picture.