As you consider and evaluate the authority of the scholars and creators you encounter in your research and studies, understand that you too are forming your own authority and scholarly voice.

This page is intended to highlight some concepts you might want to be aware of as you joined the rank of published scholars and/or have creative works of your own.

Be aware of the concept of Fair Use, especially if you are making a creative work that borrows material from another. Fair Use is often how materials are able to be shared and distributed in your classroom, but it also allows scholars and creators some safeguards when building off the works of others as long as they follow the reasonable guidelines. A citation won't help you if you are still using a significant amount of the work without building upon it or transforming it in any way.

The following guide explains more about fair use and how to tell if you are using copyright material in an acceptable manner.

A copyright is a form of intellectual property* right granted by the U.S. law, Title 17 of the U.S. Code, to serve as an incentive to create for the public good and meant to expire so creations could be progressed and built upon.

*Intellectual property refers to property that is created from the mind.

Anything you create is automatically under copyright protection, and as the copyright holder for your creation, you have the exclusive rights to:

1. To reproduce copies of your copyrighted work;
2. To prepare derivative works based on your copyrighted work;
3. To distribute copies of the copyrighted work to the public;
4. To perform the copyrighted work publicly (in the case of literacy, audiovisual, musical, dramatic works etc.)
5. To display a copyrighted work publicly; and
6. To perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of digital audio transmission in the case of sound recordings.

Currently in the US, any work created since 1978 is automatically under copyright for the life of the creator plus 70 years. In recognizing the need for creators to build off the works of others, the Creative Commons licenses were created to allow creators to make their work available for others to use. There are six different creative commons licenses:

Attribution CC BY

This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation.

Attribution ShareAlike CC BY-SA

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

Attribution-NoDerivs CC BY-ND

This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.

Attribution-NonCommercial CC BY-NC

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

Attribution-NonCommerical-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND

This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.