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PITTSBURGH PUBLIC SCHOOLS

PITTSBURGH PUBLIC SCHOOLS

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Copyrights & Plagiarism

Copyright
Copyrights 
It's so easy to copy and paste something off the Internet, but just because it's simple doesn't make it the right thing to do. In many cases, it's actually against the law because of copyrights.
 
DEFINITION: Copyright is a law that protects a creator's ownership of and control over the work he or she creates. 
 
If someone else wants to use that work, they must receive permission from the copyright hold to use, share or perform that work. Written material, including books, magazines, poems, new stories and more, websites, art, graphics, logos, architectural designs, photographs, music and lyrics, audio recordings, movies, TV shows, videos, and video games may be copyrighted. The easiest way to tell if a work is copyrighted is to look for the © symbol or the words "copyright", "all rights reserves", or something to that effect. if you are not sure if something is copyrighted, it is your responsibility to find out if it is before you use it.
 
                                               • check to see who owns it
                           • add new meaning to the work to make it original
                              • rework it and use it in a totally different way
                                            • use it for nonprofit purposes
 
Creative Commons is a type of license that allows work to be used for free as long as the creator is given credit for it. 

Content that is classified as public domain is not protected by copyright and is free to be used in any way. 

If you see something that says it may be used for commercial purposes, that means the work may be used for free if the work will be used directly or indirectly for profit.
 
 
Plagiarism
Is it OK to copy something you find on the Internet and present it as your own work? NO. That is plagiarism. Don't think it will be OK if you do it just once - you will get caught and be subject to discipline.  
 
The website plagiarism.org describes this well - plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterward. All of the following are considered acts of plagiarism: 
  • turning in someone else's work as your own
  • copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit
  • failing to put a quote in quotation marks
  • giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation
  • changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit
  • copying so many words or idea from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not