Copyright refers to the legal ownership of one's work, be it a poem or a music video (and everything in between). In the digital world, where stealing someone's photo is as easy as "Command + Shift + 4" (aka screenshot), copyright protects a creator's artistic product. It's so easy to drag a Google Image into a project, blog, etc. that copyright has to work double-time in The Internet Age.
But just because something's easy to do doesn't make it correct: copyright infringement is a (very serious) violation of federal law.
Plagiarism, stealing someone else's intellectual property and calling it your own, is not the same as copyright, although the two notions have similarities. To avoid plagiarism, you credit the person's work (attribution). To avoid copyright infringement, you must follow copyright guidelines. So, linking out to the original material is NOT adequate. You either need to have the creator's explicit permission or have grounds for fair use. If you want to use an image, the easiest way to steer clear of infringement is to use one from the public domain.
Making changes to someone's work doesn't release you from copyright laws--unless your changed work is considered "transformative" and bears no resemblance to the original.
For our class work, which includes blogging, creating book trailers, and other digital media, we have to be vigilant when it comes to using someone else's work. Adding a photo to a blog post is great, but only if the photo falls under fair use.
Resources for copyright free images and music include:
http://www.morguefile.com/
https://www.flickr.com/commons/
http://creativecommons.org/legalmusicforvideos
But just because something's easy to do doesn't make it correct: copyright infringement is a (very serious) violation of federal law.
Plagiarism, stealing someone else's intellectual property and calling it your own, is not the same as copyright, although the two notions have similarities. To avoid plagiarism, you credit the person's work (attribution). To avoid copyright infringement, you must follow copyright guidelines. So, linking out to the original material is NOT adequate. You either need to have the creator's explicit permission or have grounds for fair use. If you want to use an image, the easiest way to steer clear of infringement is to use one from the public domain.
Making changes to someone's work doesn't release you from copyright laws--unless your changed work is considered "transformative" and bears no resemblance to the original.
For our class work, which includes blogging, creating book trailers, and other digital media, we have to be vigilant when it comes to using someone else's work. Adding a photo to a blog post is great, but only if the photo falls under fair use.
Resources for copyright free images and music include:
http://www.morguefile.com/
https://www.flickr.com/commons/
http://creativecommons.org/legalmusicforvideos