Copyright

My Choice of Copyright Licensure

I chose to use the CC BY-ND 4.0 license (i.e. Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International). This license essentially states that an individual can redistribute my work, whether for commercial or non-commercial usage, so long as it remains unchanged and credit is given to me. I chose this license because I feel that everyone should have access to digital work, but obviously while giving credit. For me it was important that people had the ability to use my work, but I didn’t like the idea of it being changed, while still giving credit to me.

Using Other’s Work Ethically

Every creator of information has the right to determine how their work (i.e. intellectual property (IP)) may be used by others. The default protection is ‘All Rights Reserved.’ This type of protection means that one must ask before using the work. Owners can require attribution for their work or charge for a license. Ethically, regardless of copyright licensure, one should provide attribution for any work used. One type of work that should never be used is that that is protected in the form of watermarks or low resolution without payment. Any use of this work is considered unethical, as the owner obviously does not want it to be used. That being said, there are ethical ways to use someone’s work without having to credit the creator; public domain, creator’s choice, and fair use. Work in the public domain is work that is not protected by copyright for a number of reasons: expiration of copyright, the creator waived their rights, or the work is not eligible for protection. Creator’s choice speaks on the idea of those that waived their rights to protection. Fair use allows use of copyrighted work without permission of the creator. This one is a little iffy, as there are certain stipulations to what is considered as fair use. Some examples of fair use include parody, teaching, criticism, and more. Before using any kind of work, it is critical to ensure what copyright is being used, whether it be ‘All Rights Reserved’ or a specific license from Creative Commons. Copyright licenses are typically evident where the work is presented and can easily be researched to understand how one can use this work ethically. Overall, the best way to ensure ethical use of work is to determine what copyright is being used and what exactly the creator requires for their work, based on this licensure.