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Intellectual property is either in the public domain or protected by copyright law. Societal advancement has always built upon the hard work and genius of others. This is the building block of the human cultural and technological "gestell" or framework that revolutionizes how we live and learn. But it is also in the best interests of others as well as ourselves to take responsibility for accrediting the proper resources that builds upon that framework of personal enrichment, commerce, and science.

General Copyright Resources

U.S. Copyright Term and Public Domain: Regarding never published and previously published works. Lists what would be in the public domain as of January 1, 2010.

Avoiding Plagiarism: An overview of the safe practices and challenges of American Academic Writing.

Multi-Media Use: Clearing rights for multi-media usage.

Legal Resources for Copyright Law

Fair Use Act of 2007: Find the .pdf full text of the act.

Unofficial Opinion on Fair Use: USC Section 107 of the Fair Use Doctrine regarding copies made for classroom use and what would exceed the boundaries of fair use.

Princeton University Press et al. v. Michigan Document Services

Reed Elsevier v. Muchnick: Federal district court case regarding unauthorized electronic distribution of unregistered works. Case decided in March 2010.

Veeck v. Southern Building Code Congress International Inc.: This 2002 case found no copyright infringement regarding the publishing of a community-adopted building code.

Important Copyright Decisions: Peruse the hypertext versions of recent copyright cases.

Cybersquatting Act: The Trademark Cyberpiracy Prevention Act and its full text as well as all the Congressional sponsors, actions, and amendments.

Policy Implications & and Ethical Questions

Center for the Study of Public Domain: There is a "delicate balance" between protected and unprotected intellectual property. The Center devotes its resources to the intellectual property that resides in the public domain.

BMG Music v. Gonzalez: Illegal downloading of music, the right for jurors to decide such a case, and injunction respite.

Guide to Copyright Compliance for E-Courses: This step-by-step guide aids teachers to ensure that the materials that they choose for electronic courses comply with copyright law.

Fair Use Evaluator: Tool that helps you determine "fair use" as defined by the U.S. Copyright Code.

P2P File Sharing: Resource page on peer-to-peer file sharing.

RIAA and P2P Music Sharing: Resources, documents, and cases regarding the 2003 suit against 261 music fans who shared computer downloaded music.

Genetically Modified Seeds: Intellectual property rights and agribusiness trade and food development.

International Intellectual Property Law

International Copyright Law by Country: Pick your country and browse the intellectual property laws for that country and compare country laws.

National Copyright Law: Copyright law in 150 UNESCO member states. Translation into English, French, and Spanish, although the original .pdfs may be in the original language of the country.

Euro-Copyright Law: Protecting digital technology intellectual property in Europe.

World Intellectual Property Organization: Gateway portal to copyright, patent, trademark, industrial design, and intellectual property law and news.

United States Working Group on Intellectual Property: Report includes copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret law, technology, education and resources regarding intellectual property rights.

Protecting Intellectual Property: FAQ regarding protecting intellectual property in the United States and abroad. Topics include patents, trademarks, and copyrights.

International Journal of Law and Information Technology: Many types of IT articles, including free access articles, such as: "When Right Clash Online: The Tracking of P2p Copyright Infringements Vs. the EC Personal Data Directive."

Berne Convention: Treaty for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works available in full text.

Additional Resources

Fair Use Checklist: Download the two-page .pdf that helps you decide if the material you wish to use can be used fairly.

Fair Use Harbor: Innovative site that takes you through tutorials about copyright and fair use history, privileges, copying, other audio-visual media use, and copyright and fair use issues. Quizzes after the tutorials.

Citation Manager: Try Zotero, Firefox's open source (free) citation manager. You can collect, organize, cite, synchronize, and collaborate your research.

Fair Use Visualizer: Very cool tool. Slide the bars and see where your use of a document falls: infringement or fair use.

Digital Rights: Use this tool to query if you have the right to use a certain digital image.

APA Style: Easy to use guide helps you to cite your APA resources.

MLA Style: Extensive citation site to guide you in your MLA research attributions.

You can find anything on the Internet for research purposes. The key is to be as authoritative as possible, cite your sources always, and if you are not sure of something, check it out again or do not use. Copyright law is designed not only to protect its creator, but its user. There's much in the public domain, find the balance between the two entities and build on it.

Please feel free to print out any of these resources at home. Before you do, please be sure to stock up on high quality remanufactured inkjet and toner cartridges.

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