Faculty & Staff Library Tools

Fair use applies in many situations, but its application is never certain. A good faith decision in each situation is important. 

Fair Use Checklists & Tools

Learn About Fair Use

Creative Commons (CC) licenses are a way (though not the only way) for owners of copyrighted material to, in essence, approve certain types of uses of their work without permission. Creative Commons licensed materials (except those explicitly licensed with a "Public Domain" license) are still copyrighted and the creator of the work still owns that copyright.  

The purpose of this licensing is to offer a flexible and efficient mechanism for content creators to allow their materials to be used in certain ways without the burden of the permissions process.

Typically, CC licenses require attribution at a minimum. Copyright holders can choose licenses that allow (or prohibit) commercial uses, declare whether adapting the work is permitted, and to require the user to also use a CC-license on derivative works. 

Learn More

Attribution: Much of the information in this section is adapted from Portland CC Library's Copyright Resources guide and is licensed by Portland Community College under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

If the content was created/published before 1923, it is in the public domain. For material published after this date, it gets really complicated. Use the links below to get more information. Things that are in the public domain may be used without limitation.

Public Domain vs Free on the Internet

It is not uncommon for an instructor to comment to us, "Well, I only use things in the public domain," and be referring to items that are merely freely available on the web. These are not the same thing.

The vast majority of content on the web, though freely available, is protected by copyright. The copyright term is very long and, because the copyright laws changed several times throughout the 20th century, with changes to the law sometimes being retroactive, it can be very challenging to figure out if a given piece of content created in the 20th century is in the public domain or not.  

Attribution: Information in this section is adapted from Portland CC Library's Copyright Resources guide and is licensed by Portland Community College under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Works created by the Federal government (and some state governments) are not subject to copyright. This applies to works created by employees of the United States government in the course of their duties. Unfortunately, even this seemingly simple idea has a lot of complexity when you start examining it:

• Works produced by contractors or freelancers employed by the government are likely to be copyrighted.
• Works produced by some agencies (eg. the post office) may be subject to copyright.
• Government websites regularly feature art and imagery that were purchased or licensed by the government. Do not assume that because it is on a government website it is not subject to copyright.
• The government can own copyrights that are transferred to it.
• Logos of government agencies might be subject to trademark law even though they are not copyrightable.

Attribution: Information in this section is adapted from Portland CC Library's Copyright Resources guide and is licensed by Portland Community College under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.