And Then There's Copyright

Copyright ensures that the person who created something--whether a book or a piece of music--is reimbursed for his intellectual work. If there were no copyright protection, there would be no economic incentive to create these works.

Copyright is the set of legal rights that allows an author or copyright owner the sole ability to copy or distribute a work. Copyright lasts for a limited period of time. Most information is protected by copyright. The exception is work that is in the "public domain" which can be reproduced or used by anyone. However, you still must credit the author. Some examples of public domain sources:

Public Domain	Sources Examples
Publications of the U.S. Government	U.S. laws and other publications of the Federal government, the U.S. Constitution
Copyright has been waived by the author	Software called freeware
Works on which the copyright has expired	Works by William Shakespeare

For more information, WPI has a Copyright Policy.

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Last modified: Aug 13, 2008, 12:29 EDT