Copyright Information

Overview

All privately produced creative works, whether specifically marked as copyrighted or not, are protected under the Berne Copyright Convention. This includes endeavors in any creative form, whether it be written content, illustrations/graphics design, or any other form of media, and extends to anything created after April 1, 1989. Copyright on these items is established immediately as they are produced in tangible form, and lasts until 50 years after the author has died.

Copyright protects the monetary value of such creations for their designers, thus encouraging the sharing of creative works. Copyright garauntees the following for its owner:

  • The right to reproduce the work
  • The right to create a new work, based on the orginal(a derivative work)
  • The right to share and distribute the work in any form

The violation of Copyright laws is a civil matter, and as such will result in a lawsuit, potentially leading to lawsuits of up to $100,000 in civil damages. Cases of infringement which include more than 10 copies or a value of over $2,500 can result in a felony.

Adherence

In the construction of this website(which is being produced for academic purposes), all Copyright laws have been honored. This includes not reproducing, or deriving any of its works from other sources without explicit permission, unless covered by the Fair Use Guidlines. All users of this webpage are encouraged to do the same.

The Fair Use Guidlines are a set of rules that outline when and how to legally use Copyrighted materials. They were created to allow for critisicm and commentary, reporting, and educational purposes. Following are a few basic descriptions of these guidelines:

  • Students may incorporate portions of lawfully acquired copyrighted works when producing their own educational multimedia projects for a specific course
  • Students may use up to 10% or 3 minutes of video, which is ever is less
  • They may use 10% or 1,000 words of written material, which ever is less
  • They may use 10% or 30 seconds of musical work, which ever is less
  • They may use no more than 5 images of one artist or photographer

For a fuller description of the guidlines, visit this webpage: http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/ccmcguid.htm

Again, all are strongly encouraged and required by law to honor the copyrighted content on this and other webpages. If you would like permission to use any of the content on this website, please contact me.