Copyright law governs the use of materials you might find on the Internet, just as it governs the use of books, video or music in the analog world. Since the Internet is still fairly new, the laws still have a little catching up to do in regards to regulations.
It is wrong to assume that everything online is public domain. Neither publication nor a notice of any kind is required to protect works today. So, postings of all kinds are protected the same as published printed works.
The proliferation of RIAA lawsuits against individuals for peer-to-peer file-sharing make clear that individuals can be liable for their own actions when they copy and distribute others' copyrighted works without permission. Universities and libraries are also liable for any infringements done by their employees or students
Fair use , a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work, is a doctrine in United States copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders.
It used to be safe to say that reasonable analog educational, research and scholarly uses were fair uses. But this appears to be changing. Those same activities in the digital world are being challenged, mostly because copyright owners have gone to such lengths to make the rights we need to carry out those activities easy to obtain and reasonably priced through collective licensing (the Copyright Clearance Center, in particular).
What is the character of the use? What is the nature of the work to be used? How much of the work will you see? What effect would this use have on the market for the original or the permissions if the use were widespread?
Copyright law provides educators with a separate set of rights in addition to fair use, to display and perform others' works in the classroom . Until recently, however, when the classroom was remote, the law's generous terms for face-to-face teaching in Section 110(1) shrank dramatically in Section 110(2) -- some would say to the vanishing point!
![Building On Other’s Creative Expression ,[object Object]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/gcainscopyrightmodifiedppt-110918214851-phpapp02/85/Gcain-s-copyright-modified-ppt-1-320.jpg)
