"Teaching with Colorado's Heritage"
Module 8: Copyright Issues and Citing Sources

Copyright
Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U.S. Code) to the authors of “original works of authorship,” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works. - U.S. Copyright Office. Copyright can be a very complex issue. Below are resources to read to help you educate yourself and your students about copyright and fair use.

Public Domain
"A public domain work is a creative work that are not protected by copyright and which may be freely used by everyone. The reasons that the work is not protected include:

1. the term of copyright for the work has expired;
2. the author failed to satisfy statutory formalities to perfect the copyright or
3. the work is a work of the U.S. Government" (Gassaway, 2003).

See When Works Pass into the Public Domain by Lolly Gassaway <http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/public-d.htm> for a chart with more information.

Library of Congress American Memory
Though work created by employees of the U.S. Government is in the public domain, some of the collections in the Library of Congress are actually owned by other institutions, so you must check the individual copyright statements before assuming public domain. For more information see the Library of Congress Questions and Answers about Copyright and Fair Use <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/start/cpyrt/index.html>

Heritage West
The objects in Heritage West are generally not in the public domain. For use outside of 'fair use', permission must be procured from the owning institutions. Copyright information is included in the metadata. Please check the CDP’s Copyright, Disclaimer and Other Restrictions for more information.

Fair Use
Copyright in the United States is limited by fair use. Therefore, copyrighted work can be legally used if its use falls under the guidelines of fair use. See Copyright in an Electronic Environment for print and electronic media guidelines.

Contacting copyright holders for permission
If you still want to use something that has copyright protection, and you want to use it outside of the 'fair use guidelines', get permission from the copyright holder by using WATCH, Writers, Artists and their copyright holders <http://tyler.hrc.utexas.edu/>. This database contains the names and addresses of copyright holders or contact persons for authors and artists whose archives are housed, in whole or in part, in libraries and archives in North America and the United Kingdom. The objective of making the database available is to provide scholars information about whom to contact for permissions to publish text and images that are still under copyright protection.

Citations
Always credit the sources of the material you use, regardless of its copyright status.

NoodleBib Starter is a free on-line tool geared for the elementary school student to creates a single MLA-style citation for common sources a young student might encounter in a research project.

MLA-Style Citation Format for digital Maps:

Photographer last name, first name, middle initial. "Title of Work." Date. Title of collection. [Protocol and address] [digital ID] (date of visit).

MLA-style Citation Format for digital Photographs:

Photographer last name, first name, middle initial. "Title of photograph." Date. Title of Collection. [Protocol and address] [digital ID] (date of visit).

MLA-style Citation Format for texts:

Author last name, first name, middle initial. "Title of work." Date. Title of collection. [Protocol and address] [Call Number] (date of visit).

MLA-style Citation Format for Websites:

Author. Title. day month year <source>.

How to Understand Copyright Restrictions. 09/21/2003. Library of Congress. <http://memory.loc.gov/learn/start/cpyrt/index.html>

How to Cite Electronic Resources. 12/05/23. Library of Congress. <http://memory.loc.gov/learn/start/cite/index.html>