Student Projects & Presentations FAQ

Since Interactive Qualitative Projects (IQPs), Major Qualifying Projects (MQPs), theses, and dissertations are now published online and often distributed to a sponsor; you need to pay even closer attention to copyright law.

Guidelines

The following are some guidelines for student use of copyright materials in course projects:

Materials used must be legally acquired.
Credit the sources with citations and display the copyright notice © and copyright ownership information for all works used in projects.
On the opening screen or first page of report or presentation, include a notice:
"Certain materials are included under the fair use exemption of the U.S. Copyright Law and have been prepared according to the fair use guidelines and are restricted from further use."
If project will be for commercial reproduction and distributed beyond the classroom use (this includes posting on a Web site or given to a sponsor), copyright permission for use of materials is required.

Students may perform and display their own projects created for educational uses in the course for which they were created and may use them in their own portfolios as examples of their academic work for later personal uses, such as job and graduate school interviews.

Specific Questions

For a course related project, can I copy an image from a commercial Web site?: Guidelines state that a photograph or illustration may be used in its entirety but no more than 5 images by an artist or photographer may be reproduced or otherwise incorporated. However, some Web sites, such as Smithsonian, allow use for student projects. Check the copyright statement for each site.
For my MQP research, I need to use MP3 music samples to test my software application; can I use songs I have downloaded?: According to Educational Multimedia guidelines, you may incorporate portions of lawfully acquired copyrighted works when producing their own educational multimedia projects for a specific course.

For music, lyrics, and music video: up to 10%, but in no event more than 30 seconds, of the music and lyrics from an individual musical work may be used.
Can I use a video clip of a broadcast on tsunamis during my class presentation?: Fair Use Multimedia Guidelines state that you may use 10% or 3 minutes, whichever is less, of a motion media work.
I plan to use a few copyrighted music clips in my presentation and plan to post this on my users.wpi.edu Web space, is this okay?: No. The fair use guidelines state that the distribution of the copyrighted materials must be for the course work only, intended for the professor or students within the course. If redistributed or shown outside the class, permission should be obtained from the copyright owner.
How do I obtain permission from the copyright owner?: Track down the creator of the work, obtain written permission (via e-mail or letter) which should be saved with the final project and submitted as part of the project if you plan to upload it to the projects database, or electronic thesis/dissertation (ETD) repository at WPI. See How To Secure Permission to Use Copyrighted Works at Copyright Management Center, Indiana University.
Do I need obtain permission from people I interview or photograph before publishing their comments or picture in my final project report?: If you are using a name or likeness of a person, best practice is to request permission from that person by asking them to sign an image or interview consent & release form. See http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter12/12-d.html for a sample of an interview release; or their Personal Release Agreement sample http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter12/12-c.html.
Do I own the copyright to my MQP, IQP, Sufficiency, Thesis or Dissertation?: Even unpublished works are protected by U. S. Copyright law. According to WPI's Intellectual Property Policy, "Copyright to individual IQP, MQP, sufficiency, thesis, and dissertation reports and documents are owned by the author, subject to other agreements. In the case of a jointly written document, copyright is held jointly by all authors, subject to other agreements. In cases when such a document was submitted to fulfill a degree requirement, students will grant to WPI a nonexclusive royalty-free license to distribute copies of the document, subject to other agreements. In cases in which such a document contains other intellectual property, the author(s) and WPI may mutually agree not to disclose the document until intellectual property implicit in the document has been appropriately protected."

More Information

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Last modified: Mar 18, 2008, 09:07 EDT