Welcome to the Copyright LibGuide! This Guide is designed to share information about copyright and how it relates to our college environment.
Copyright is defined as the exclusive legal right to reproduce, publish, sell, or distribute the matter and form of something (as a literary, musical, or artistic work.)
Copyright laws refer to laws that regulate the use of the work of a creator, such as an artist or author. One of the rights accorded to the owner of copyright is the right to reproduce or to authorize others to reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords. This right is subject to certain limitations found in sections 107 through 118 of the copyright law (title 17, U.S. Code).
To read the specific details of the Copyright Law please refer to this document:
A Conference on Fair Use (CONFU) was convened in 1994 to bring together copyright owner and user interests to discuss fair use issues and, if appropriate and feasible, to develop guidelines for fair uses of copyrighted works by librarians and educators. Meeting regularly in public sessions, CONFU grew from the forty groups which were invited initially to participate in the first meeting on September 21, 1994, to the approximately one hundred organizations participating as of May 1998. At the final meeting in May 1998, it was agreed that a Final Report on CONFU be issued.
CONFU guidelines are particularly useful for educators and students who are working on educationally-related projects like video podcasting, multimedia projects utilizing sound and videos, etc.
FINAL REPORT TO THE COMMISSIONER ON THE CONCLUSION OF THE CONFERENCE ON FAIR USE