how can someone avoid using copyrighted material?

Answer 1

Be original.
The use of copyrighted material has become a bigger issue since Congress passed a law extending a copyright from a few years to 70-125 years, for any material published after 1-1-1978. With all the websites out their looking for original content then this can be a major problem.

You can use copyrighted material to inspire you, but you have to have an original or have a fresh idea. It would be a lot easier if you gave me a subject, but then you have the risk of getting my own ideas involved. While I haven't copyrighted them, they are my ideas and thoughts not yours.

Mickey Mouse, the cartoon, the character and all of the related work is copyrighted material and the Walt Disney Corporation owns that copyright. So it will extend to at least 25 years after the corporation goes out of business, which will not happen anytime soon. You can still create a cartoon about a mouse that speaks, but he can't be married to Minnie Mouse, or have a dog named Pluto. A Parody is much easier to do since you can use the spirit of someone else’s ideas. You new character, Nicky Mouse could be married to Ninny Mouse and have a dog named Hades (a pun off of Pluto) and so on. Usually this is done to poke fun at the original product, but it is also a cheap way to steal an idea without really stealing it. The problem is that since it is not original it is a poor bit of work. While you can be careful enough to not get the Walt Disney Corporation to sue you, to most people you would have made a cheap knock-off product. This is why most parodies are done as comic sketches with the intent of being linked to the original.

As far as including copyrighted material in a report or on your website then it depends on your motive. If you are writing a report and you list your references then you can use copyrighted material, you can do the same on a website. But, in both cases you must not compete with the owner of the copyrighted material.

You can get permission to use copyrighted material. You simply have to ask the copyright owner. If you were writing a book review and publishing it in a for profit magazine, website or newspaper most companies will allow you to quote from their work and use parts of it in your review, for free. Even if your review is hostile to the work, it is still free advertising. During WW2 the US Military allowed the work of its soldiers to be used in many films for free, they saw it as good publicity. Film and moviemakers could use images of ships; an army in attack, and a whole lot more for their films. After the Vietnam War when the movies were not casting the military in a favorable light the US stopped allowing moviemakers to use their material, they didn’t like the bad PR. Now days the trend is reversing and the military is more favorable to working with moviemakers. Tom Cruise got to fly in a real fighter jet, for the movie Top Gun. Parts of the movie were shot on the aircraft carrier, and the commander of that aircraft carrier got a small role in the movie playing himself. This couldn’t have been done without the permission of the US Government. Since the US saw it as good publicity they allowed it and even slightly altered the ship’s mission to allow for the filming. So if you can get the cooperation of the owner of the material then you can use it, and the best way to do that is to flatter them in some fashion.

Permission can also be gained by paying for the rights. There are millions of free fonts on the web, but most of the fonts have a text file with the creator’s copyright in it. Well over 90% of these people allow others to use their fonts for free, but the same number of people want you to pay them a little to use their font in a business. It is an accepted business practice and expense. The copyright owner may or may not require that his work be acknowledged in the business somehow. In published work this is often done in the fine print. With photos the credit is often printed on the photo itself, or right next to it. But, if you are using a font for your business sign then you can’t put a note on it saying this font was made by Joe Blow. For some people this is all right, as long as they get paid for it, but they may want more money.

The problem is that if you don’t have permission of the owners of the copyrighted material then you can’t use it at all. In this case you have to be original and do the work yourself or hire someone who can do it. If you want to be cheap about it then you will want to talk with a student or someone who is new in the field. Your request could flatter them enough that they could do the work for a token fee. Of course you get what you pay for, if you go to an amateur for work then you will probably get amateurish work. There are a lot of exceptions, but you will have to search for them.

If you want a professional quality painting for the cover of your new book, or to post on your website then you are going to have to search hard for someone who is willing to do the work for you, and you will have to accept what they can do. In the book publication industry the author rarely has any say over what artwork accompanies his text; the publisher controls that. Often the publisher will take a written work and then send an excerpt of it to a painter and ask for a painting. When they do that then they are stuck with what the painter paints. If the publisher doesn’t like it then they can send the artwork back, but they will still have to pay the painter to have him paint it. A few painters would be willing to work for a small fee and hope that the publisher buys their work. Even fewer will be willing to work on speculation, by painting the image and hoping that the publisher will pay for it, these are the “starving artists” who don’t get paid unless someone wants to keep their work. Professionals in the field will want to be paid before they even start the painting. The publisher is willing to do this because a professional will give them quality work. So if you want to get unique work that you can’t do yourself then you need to find someone who is willing to do the work cheap. This is why publishers are always looking for new talent. If the talent is good enough then the publisher can buy their work for cheap and make a large profit off of it. Over time that talent will become recognized and so command a higher fee, and they could even work for competing companies. Early in Hollywood’s movie history a movie studio bought the rights for an actor. This is how Jimmy Stewart and a lot of the older movie stars started out. The movie stable would have a stable of stars to use over and over in their pictures. When the stars became more and more popular, when their power exceeded that of the studios the powerful studio rulership broke down. As a result now days the big stars can work for whoever they want to and command huge fees. You can see the same thing in professional sports as well.

Neither you nor Yahoo is paying for this answer, and I am posting it in a public place, where anyone can view it. You may have to join Yahoo Answer’s first, but that is free. Anyone can read this answer and take what they want from it. It is impossible to copyright this, to do so would require the exchange of value or services (this is called consideration in legal circles). Yahoo gives out points for an answer, but those points have such a low value that they don’t count as consideration. Since Yahoo doesn’t want to pay for this they publicly state (in the fine print) that anything posted here is done so without consideration, and belongs to Yahoo. Because of this Stephen Hawking my have asked a question on this board, but he isn’t willing to post his answers, because he won’t get paid for it. However, Yahoo will let people use the data for free, because if they didn’t’ then consideration issues would arise (Yahoo does make a profit in the traffic done so that’s why they are willing to run the board). If you took some ideas from an answer and then posted it on a for profit website you would be violating Yahoo’s copyright. If you use it in some other way then you will have to give credit to the answerer and Yahoo or that would be plagiarism. But, you can freely use the material presented here on a free website.

Simply put to avoid using copyrighted material you need to either do your own work, and be original, or you will have to pay for it. You can assume that anything you see published is copyrighted, unless the site specifically states that the product is in the public domain, or unless the copyright has expired (which will require copyright research, a job done by specialists).

The best thing to do would be to look for someone willing to do the work for free, or a low fee. Forums and message boards are the best place to find these people. If you have more specific ideas of what you are looking for then you can contact me via my Avatar and send them to me. Otherwise ALL of it is up to you. You have to create it or buy it, or find where it is free.

Answer 2

Remember:
-If you use more than 3 of authors words together, use quotes and site pg number.
-As long as a work is cited, you are not plagarizing.

Answer 3

Of course you have to have permission. That is why copyright exists.

Answer 4

if you are looking to avoid plagiarism just remember to cite your material

Answer 5

Do original research.