Why Does Copyright Matter?
When creating your ePortfolio, you will use sources and assets in multiple formats and from a variety of places. However, it is important to respect the work of the original creators of these resources and credit them for their work; whether that is the person who created your background music or image, your friend who took a photo of an event you attended, or you, who conducted original research and creative endeavors during your time at Oxford! The law that governs how we can use works authored by others is generally referred to as the field of copyright.
What is Copyright?
Copyright is a very complex topic because it overlaps information ethics with legal protection for intellectual property. We discuss some basics here, but if you have questions, speak with a librarian and we can connect you with resources that have more information.
Copyright protects original "literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works" (US Copyright Office). It does not protect facts or ideas. So if you write a song or take a photo, you have copyright over it, but you aren't able to copyright the fact that the sky is blue.
The creator of a work has copyright over the work the moment it is created, even if it is not registered with the US Copyright Office. That said, you will have to register your work to file a lawsuit against another person or group for infringing your copyright (using your copyrighted work without your permission).
Using Copyrighted Work
Copyright belongs to the creator of a work as soon as it is created, but it doesn't belong to the creator forever. In many countries, copyright protection lasts for the life of the creator plus 70 years, but laws may differ from one country to another. When the copyright expires, the work enters the public domain. Works in the public domain are eligible for use without restriction. Anything published in the United States before 1925 is currently in the public domain.
There are other ways that copyrighted work may be used. You may have heard of works in "Creative Commons" that are available for reuse. When someone creates a copyrighted object, they can choose to allow others to use it without their specific permission, as long as they follow certain conditions. This is called a Creative Commons license. Read about some Creative Commons licenses below.
For example, I take a photo of a tree outside, and I automatically have copyright over this photo. I post it on the internet with an Attribution-Non Commercial license. This means that others are free to use my tree photo however they like, as long as they mention that I took the photo, and they don't use it to make money. There are many other Creative Commons licenses, and you can read more about them on the Creative Commons website.