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Copyright Tutorial for FCAD Students

Copyright Basics

This section provides an introduction to copyright, intellectual property, and user exceptions in the Copyright Act.

What is Copyright?

What is the difference between copyright, IP, and trademark? 

Intellectual Property or IP refers to “creations of the mind, such as inventions; literary and artistic works; designs; and symbols, names and images used in [business]” (WIPO). There are different types of intellectual property including copyright, trademark, patents, and trade secrets. 

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Plagiarism vs. Copyright Infringement 

Plagiarism 

Plagiarism occurs when one uses another creator’s work and presents it as their own by not properly crediting the source. Plagiarism is an ethical and academic integrity issue. As a Seneca student, plagiarism violates the Academic Integrity Policy. 

Copyright Infringement 

Copyright infringement happens when one uses copyrighted work and fails to follow the conditions set in the Copyright Act. Even if a citation is included, it is still possible to infringe on copyright. Copyright infringement is a legal issue. In addition to academic or professional consequences, copyright infringement can have legal implications.

Examples

Plagiarism
  • Including a direct quote from an article in an essay without giving credit to the author.
  • Forgetting to include a citation to a paraphrased text. 
  • Referencing incorrectly or including fake sources.
Copyright Infringement
  • Adding several images copied from an artist's website to a slide deck and including citations for all the images used.
  • A song is included in a YouTube video with attribution but without permission from the copyright owner. 
Plagiarism & Copyright Infringement
  • Copying and posting a significant portion of a book (infringement) without giving credit to the author (plagiarism).
  • Not including an attribution (plagiarism) to music which has been downloaded from an artist's website (infringement) into a video assignment.

Fair Dealing 

Fair Dealing is a user right in the Copyright Act which allows users to copy or use copyrighted materials without permission or payment to the copyright owner as long as the use or "dealing" is considered fair. Note that the concept of "fair use" is based on U.S. copyright law and is not equal to the concept of fair dealing.

 

What's considered fair?

In order to apply fair dealing, users must meet the following conditions:

  • Provide attribution or citation to the work.
  • Be using the work for one of the following purposes: research, private study, education, parody, satire, criticism, review or news reporting.
  • Determine if the use of the work is fair. To determine fairness, the user must look at these factors: purpose, character, amount, alternative, nature, effect. Read more about the fair dealing factors on the library’s Copyright Guide.

Mash-up Exception 

A mashup refers to the use of different types of media (images, videos, etc.) to create something new such as a video or presentation. The Canadian Copyright Act has a section called Non-commercial User-generated Content ("Mash-up Exception") which allows the use of copyrighted materials like videos and images to create new, original works as long as you follow certain conditions.

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