7.5 Copyright

Copyright refers to laws to protect the works and the rights of authors. These laws determine how or if someone else’s protected work can be legally copied, shared, performed, reused, or modified. Copyright infringement means copying or distributing someone else’s copyrighted material without permission. As soon as you create something that is your own work, such as a short story you’ve written or a video, you hold that work’s copyright in the United States.

Copyright can also be sold or licensed to another person or company, who then has control over what happens to the copyrighted content. For example, authors are often required to sign over their copyright upon publication, effectively handing over the rights to the companies that publish their work. This model enables publishers to charge outrageously high prices for journals, books, and textbooks. This is also why you cannot stream the tv series you like on every platform, and why Nintendo doesn’t let you livestream their video games.

Public domain

Not all creative works are copyrighted. Works that are not protected by copyright are in the public domain. This means that you don’t have to ask for permission from a copyright holder to reuse the content. Materials in the public domain typically fall into one of two categories.

• Materials that are not copyrighted: Published US government documents are, by design, never copyrighted because they are meant to be open to all. For example, transcripts of congressional hearings are government documents, as are images from NASA, and the data from the US Census. Other materials that cannot be copyrighted include simple mathematical equations and food recipes.
• Materials whose copyright has expired: Books published 95 years ago or longer in the US are another example of public domain materials. Their copyright protection has simply expired. The original intent of copyright law was to protect an author’s rights of redistribution and sales, but authors of works published so long ago are probably not alive anymore. Thus the need to protect that author’s profits is also gone.

Does this mean that you can copy content from a US government website, such as this image from NASA, without asking for permission? Yes, you can!

Can you use it in an assignment without citing the source? No, that would be plagiarism. It’s important to always credit the source, regardless of whether or not it is in the public domain.

You can find a lot of public domain works on the internet using tools like (link will open in a new window) Google Books and searching for works published 95 years ago or earlier. (Link will open in a new window): The Internet Archive is another good source of public domain books, films, and other materials. If you don’t know whether something is copyrighted, it is best to assume everything you find online is copyrighted unless you find an explicit statement indicating otherwise.

Licensing copyrighted works

Most works are under full, “all rights reserved” copyright. This means that they cannot be reused in any way without permission from the copyright holder. One way you can get permission to use someone else’s work is through a license, a statement or contract that allows you to reuse a copyrighted work in specific circumstances. For example, the copyright holder for a popular book might sign a license to provide a movie studio with the rights to use their characters in a film.

Creative Commons licenses

Creative Commons licenses are a type of copyright license that lets the creator specify the ways others can reuse their work. They were created to encourage sharing by making it easy to identify which works can be shared. These licenses help users understand what they can and can’t do when reusing someone else’s work.

There are six Creative Commons licenses, each with different rules, and attaching a license to your work lets others know how they may use your material. For example, a creator can use one type of Creative Commons license to specify that others can reuse their work but not make money off of it. Alternatively, they might use a license that says users cannot modify their work in any way. View the image above for a description of each license or read about them at the (link will open in a new window) Creative Commons website.

Popular sites like YouTube, Wikipedia, Flickr, and many others have used Creative Commons licenses for years. You can even (link will open in a new window) search for images available under a Creative Commons license using Google Image Search.

AI and Copyright

The use of Generative AI in creating images has brought with it a whole new element of concern regarding the copyright of images. Who is the owner of an AI generated image? Who is the creator? Is the machine the creator or is the person using the machine the creator? With this wide-ranging access to generative AI tools comes the ability for many people to create computer-generated images that can be shared, sold and bought world-wide. If a content creator uses generative AI in posting their content online, does the person creating the content own that image or does the generative AI company own the image? Also, can that said image be copyrighted or licensed? These are questions that have been asked by lawyers, regulators, and creators.

Le (2025) compared this conundrum to when the camera was first invented, stating “Just as photography expanded the definition of art
and tested the boundaries of copyright, AI-generated works blur the line between tool and creator, raising fresh questions about authorship and originality”^[1]

In response to generative AI developments, in March 2023, the United States Copyright Office issued guidance that clarified AI-only works cannot be registered. However, human contributions to AI-assisted works may be, provided the creators disclose AI involvement if it exceeds a very minimal level.^[2]. This means that for content creators and those who use AI to assist in the creation of AI images, if the image itself is completely AI generated, it cannot be copyrighted. However, if AI is used only as an assist, and at a very minimal level, unless otherwise noted – then the creator of the image can petition to have their images copyrighted.

As the increased use of generative AI grows, so will the discussion around copyright availability for AI-generated images. Time will tell as to how these laws will change and be updated as the use of generative AI emerges as an artistic and creative tool in the creation and distribution of computer-assisted images.

How does copyright affect you?

Copyright affects you both as a user and creator of information.

As an information user, you need to know:

• whether a work you want to share, copy, or modify is still under copyright or in the public domain;
• what license is applied to the work, such as a Creative Commons license that specifies conditions for reuse, or a commercial license that requires a fee; and
• who holds the copyright, so you know who to ask for permission to reuse their work.

As an information creator, you need to know:

• that your creative works are protected by copyright law;
• that you have the right to decide how your works can be used or shared, such as by applying a Creative Commons license;
• that you can keep or sign away your copyright; for example, when you post to a social media platform, you might be signing away your rights for that content as part of the company’s terms of use.

If you want to learn more about copyright law, this page from the U.S. Copyright Office will open in a new window: copyright.gov, and it’s a good place to start.

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