“Permission” by Nina Paley is ♡ Copyheart marked and licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
Finding Content You Can Use Freely
- Open Educational Resources Consortium
- California Open Online Library for Education – A service of the California State University MERLOT program (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Training) to provide access to quality FREE and OPEN eTextbooks
- Search Creative Commons
- Open 4 Us – A collection of search portals for Open Educational Resources
- YouTube’s Audio Library of royalty-free music and sound effects (with and without attribution required)
- Finding Podcast Safe Content – Background and Resources from Creative Commons
- “Podsafe” is a good term to use when searching for content
Obtaining/Using Rights When You Need To:
- The Basics of Getting Permission – From Stanford
- Getting Permission – More insight from Washington State University
Some Best Practices:
- Make sure you are asking the right person–permission from somebody who doesn’t actually own the copyright will not protect you. For instance,
- The copyright for printed works, or certain parts of the copyright, is often transferred from author to publisher.
- The copyright for music can be held by multiple parties, including the composer(s), performer(s), and the record company.
- Be mindful of how easy it is for information to proliferate on the Internet, regardless of whether the claimed copyright is valid; always go to the source whenever possible.
- Be specific when requesting permissions (how it will be used, in what environment, how many people will see/hear/experience it, what language it will made available in, the duration of use requested, if there’s commercial gain potential, etc.)
- Ask how the author would like attribution to be communicated
- Always include attribution when using another’s work
- Have records of all correspondence in writing and keep a record of the contract (whether granting or getting permissions)
- You may be asked to pay a fee, which you can try to negotiate
- Remember that the copyright holder is under no obligation to respond to your request.
- Do not compose a letter asking for permission with an inherent assumption that you will use the content unless you hear back that you cannot.
- Getting no response does not equate to permission.
Don’t miss the selection of Additional Resources to help round out your understanding of copyright law and its application.
Copyright Home Basics Exemptions Creative Commons Fair Use
Finding Content Additional Resources
Disclaimer: The content of this page is presented for informational purposes only and is not intended to substitute for legal advice.