LEARN NC

people of various ages painting with hands and feet

Web Publishing & Collaboration Guide

For LEARN NC partners

3.1 Copyright guidelines for publishing

When you publish a work on the web, one of the following three cases must apply:

  1. You must have created the work;
  2. You must have permission from the creator or copyright holder; or
  3. The work must be free of copyright.

(By “publish” we are assuming publishing a full work, which would not fall under the fair use exception to copyright. Brief quotations are permissible.)

Republishing any other work on a personal or public website is a violation of United States copyright law. LEARN NC will not under any circumstances accept material for publication that does not meet one of the above three standards.

Meeting the first standard is easy in principle — just make it yourself! But it isn’t always practical, or necessary. The following pages provide guidelines for determining where copyright applies and for finding and obtaining permission for materials you can republish as part of your article, lesson plan, or other published work.