Copyright Primer: Your Own Material

Your own material is yours to use as you wish. Your own material includes:

• Course outlines, syllabi, notes, etc.
• Presentation slides, including those with third party material (must adhere to Fair Use guidelines or have permission)
• Articles you’ve authored and have retained the rights to upload to an LMS (this varies by publisher – check your publisher’s contract)

For all other materials you may need to seek permission from the copyright holder. But not to worry. For educational purposes, especially one-time uses, there are exceptions that may help you out.

Image Source: Derivative work by Clark College Libraries

You cannot copyright “monkey selfies,” “murals painted by an elephant,” and other activities of nature without a human author.

You also cannot copyright recipes or a list of ingredients and instructions on how to combine them.

You can, however, copyright the arrangement of recipes such as in a cookbook.

Hungry for more? See  Copyrightable Authorship: What Can be Registered? from the U.S. Government, linked below.