Copyright and Fair Use on the Final Project

People often ask me how we’ll handle copyright concerns when we publish websites on Wix. Here are the copyright guidelines you should follow (both for this assignment and in general).

If you don’t want to wade through all the examples below, here’s the basic philosophy governing the guidelines: you need to follow both academic conventions (by citing sources you rely on) and legal conventions (by using copyrighted work only in fair ways).

A lot of these guidelines simple say, “write a fair use statement.” To me, that means writing a brief paragraph or a series of bullets that walks readers through all 4 of the fair use factors. (You’ll need a good fair use checklist to do so; I recommend this one, a pdf.) The assumption is that if you can’t defend your use as fair, you shouldn’t use the source (or you should adjust your use to make it fall more closely in line with fair use).

We’ll practice writing fair use statements in class on November 13.

Images

• If you make images yourself from scratch (a painting, a photo you took): no citation necessary, no fair use statement necessary
• If you use a copyrighted image in any way (a screenshot, something from Google Images, something you blended with other images in Photoshop or Paint or at Pixlr): cite it on your credits page, and write a fair use statement
• If you use an image licensed by Creative Commons (probably from Flickr.com, using their advanced search) or an image that is in the public domain (perhaps from a site you found through this list of resources): cite it on your credits page, but don’t write a fair use statement

Audio

• If you find something on Soundcloud.com that someone else uploaded (i.e. it’s not linked to your account) and you want to embed it on your site: cite it, but no fair use statement necessary
• If you make a sound and host it on your own Soundcloud account, follow these steps:
  • If you record yourself talking or playing an instrument and include no other sounds: no citation necessary, no fair use statement necessary
  • If you create a new sound that uses copyrighted sounds in any way (music, sound effects): cite these sounds on your credits page, and write a fair use statement
  • If you create a new sound that uses sounds that were in the public domain or licensed by Creative Commons (perhaps from freesound.org, Jamendo.com, or Soundcloud): cite these sounds on your credits page, but don’t write a fair use statement

Video

• If you find something on YouTube that someone else uploaded (i.e. it’s not linked to your account) and you want to embed it on your site: cite it, but no fair use statement necessary; you’re not liable for embedding copyrighted material that someone else decided to host on his/her own YouTube account
• If you make a video and host it on your own YouTube account, follow these steps:
  • If you record yourself talking or playing an instrument and include no other sounds or clips: no citation necessary, no fair use statement necessary
  • If you make a screencast where the audience hears your voice discussing what they see in the video, you have some wiggle room. If your video discusses a text in depth (a book, webpage, videogame, etc.), and you think that your audience may want to know more about that text, go ahead and cite your source. If it’s a copyrighted source that you discuss in depth, write a fair use statement. But if your video only shows sources briefly or in unsubstantial ways, you probably have a good defense for not citing every source or writing a fair use statement, especially if part of your point is to purposefully show a lot of content. Use your judgment, and ask me if you’re not sure.
  • If you create a new video that uses copyrighted video clips or sounds in any way: cite those videos and sounds on your credits page, and write a fair use statement
  • If you create a new video that uses video clips or sounds that were all created by you or licensed by Creative Commons: cite those videos and sounds on your credits page, but don’t write a fair use statement