I took a course  earlier this summer in which part of the content dealt with
copyright issue. The course was for educators and was offered by the school of
library science at the University of South Carolina.

Here is a a question that was posed and the answer.

Question: Can material found on the Web or on the Internet be used in a presentation?

Answer: In many cases you do not know whether material found on the Internet
or World Wide Web is legally acquired copyright material. Fair use does not
cover this material so unless the source and rights are noted - DO NOT use it.

    Internet Copyright Issues

Electronic networks and the Internet have become household words. Almost
anything can be found on those networks and can be transmitted to someone else
quickly and easily. Text material, graphics, photographs, and list serves are
all just waiting for people to use. As more and more information becomes
available each day, copyright problems multiply. It is so easy to search for
information, to change or modify it and then to upload it in a different
format. E-mail allows new or changed material to be sent anywhere in the world
with the stroke of a few computer keys. When material is uploaded to an
electronic network then it is fixed in a tangible form and therefore
considered to be protected by copyright. Many users feel that this material is
in the public domain since it is available on these public networks. Copyright
holders, publishers, and others are concerned about the misuse of copyrighted information.


Question: How can someone who enters original material onto an electronic
network protect that material?

Answer: A copyright notice or statement that this material is or is not
available for use by others should be placed at the beginning of any such
work. 

Question: Is e-mail subject to copyright protection?

Answer: Once e-mail is sent, it is considered to be in tangible form and
therefore is fixed or published.



  Until more definitive information is available, the best practice is to
apply copyright rules from other media to the new technology highway. Do not
do anything that you think may be questioned, that you have doubts about in
your own mind, that would deprive the creator of income or recognition that a
work is his or her intellectual property, and that you wouldn't want someone
else to do to your work.


Fair is a sticky issue. The rule of thumb for that I learned for educators is
that the use must be spontaneous, utilize no more than 10% of a copyrighted
source, and once used, say for that school term, the copyrighted portions
should be removed from the presentation.


I have placed copyright notices on all of my web pages upon advice from those
in association with the USGENWEB project. Some of the work that I have done
can be found in the public domain on microfilm at the South Carolina State
Archives. The fact is that I went to the trouble and time do the
transcriptions. The format and way in which the work is presented is my
intellectual property. My notices state that individuals are welcome to print
a copy for their own use or for donation to a non profit genealogical society.
The url may be freely shared but the work may not be transferred
electronically. That is to safeguard the work from going across a list and
possibly ending up somewhere else in the WWW wherever and being sold when I
present it free of charge on my web page.

   I do hope that I haven't made for more confusion. Best thing is to remember
to not copy but you may quote, as long as the source is credited. 

Cindy Parker
Assistant State Coordinator for SCGenWeb
County Coordinator for Sumter, Clarendon, and Lee Counties
SCSumter and Richbourg Rootsweb List Owner
Instructors Liaison for IIGS University
Mathematics Teacher, Alice Drive Middle School, Sumter, S.C.

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