The importance of copyright is an essential component of the modern educational experience. Copyright is important as it helps to protect the value of an author/academic/researchers work, by giving the originator of the work the ability to protect it from unlicensed or uncredited usage. This leads to the prevention of their work being copied to the degree where they cannot sell it effectively or receive credit for it. In this way, copyright fosters intellectual creativity as it provides an incentive for a creator to work freely, allowing them to gain recognition for their work as well as protecting their livelihood.
There are a few exceptions to full copyright however, one of these being Creative Commons. Creative Commons refers to a set of licenses that allows authors of papers and other works decide exactly how people may use their work and for what purpose. It essentially means that they can decide to what use their works can be made. There are six different licenses that are available that are made up of Attribution, that the author of the work should have their name recognised and attached to it, non-derivatives, whether or not the original can be changed, non-commercial, can they make money off using the item, and share alike that all work taken from the original must have the same creative commons license. The six licenses combine allowances and stop some of these uses to form the different license. A breakdown of these licenses can be seen in the video below. It allows students and lecturers to see in what ways they can use certain works. It also allows authors to easily make their work easy to share and accessible if they desire it. However, remember by using this license you signing away your rights to full copyright protection and lessening any financial incentives from the work. Also, remember there is a way to put your work into the public domain completely through the CC0 license but this forfeits any copyright protection including attribution.
Copyright in Ireland is enshrined in law by the Copyright & Related Rights Act, 2000 and its amendments. The Copyright and Other Intellectual Property Law Provisions Act 2019 is expected to replace the older act but has yet to be fully enacted. The 2000 act is still the law in relation to copyright at the time of writing. Students and lecturers should familiarize themselves with these laws.
Disclaimer: This guide should be used as a reference to copyright law only and should not replace legal advice. The advice given is to be used as a guide only.
Fair dealing refers to instances when you do not need to ask permission from the creator of a copyrighted work to use their content. It applies in circumstances when:
1. The copied work is not infringing on the profits of the originators of the work.
2. It is used for academic, education, criticism, review or reporting on currents events purposes.
3. A satisfactory attribution is given to the originator of the copyrighted work.
However defense on a case on case basis and fault for a case is based on four aspects: the purpose of the work; how much is copied; the purpose of your use and whether it infringes on the right or profits of the original works owners.
This usually only applies to individual copies. Multiple copies cannot be made and distributed unless covered by the ICLA license. ICLA approved work can be copied and distributed to students.
IADT LibGuides are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC-BY-NC 4.0)