Copyright Myths

Copyright status is only granted to well-known authors and filmmakers.

• True
• False

The Motion Picture Association of America has anti-piracy sniffing dogs.

• True
• False

Sam buys a new band's CD but decides he doesn't like the singer, so he resells the CD on eBay. That's legal.

• True
• False

The sole purpose of copyright is to make authors money and protect them from getting their works stolen.

• True
• False

Amy tells Daniel about her summer vacation, and he says he'd love to see her pictures. Amy uses Facebook to upload the photographs she took at camp.  Daniel downloads them from Facebook. That's copyright infringement.

• True
• False

Jason copies the entire last chapter from the final Harry Potter book to his commercial blog without any additional commentary. Since he only used part of the work, Jason would be protected by fair use.

• True
• False

Kathy downloaded a few photos of local organic farms from Flickr.com's Creative Commons (CC) pool.  She follows the rules of the photographer's specific CC License and uses them in her digital video about sustainable agriculture.  She is not violating any copyright laws.

• True
• False

Dwight finds a peer-to-peer (P2P) network that offers free music downloads. He owns all but one of his favorite band's CDs, and he finds that particular CD on the network. He's too cheap to buy it, so he downloads the songs. He's not committing copyright infringement.

• True
• False

Paula read an interesting article about the making of the film Titanic and wants to use a short quote in her cinema review paper for journalism class. That's copyright infringement.

• True
• False

The Public Domain is a polar research station in Antarctica.

• True
• False