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Office of Research > UC Davis InnovationAccess > for UC Davis Community > Information Center > Copyrights
Copyright Web Resources
DMCA web resources are located here.
There are many Internet resources to help you learn about and navigate through the world of copyright. However, some are good and others are misleading or outright wrong so don’t believe everything you read. Below is a list of online sources you may find helpful. Be aware that sites outside of the University of California may not be accurate for UC Davis.
For using someone else's copyright-protected works
Just because it’s on the Internet, doesn’t have a copyright notice, or you’re not selling it doesn’t mean you can copy or distribute something! You may need to obtain permission (via a license), meaning you need to find the person to ask. This can be a challenge but you have to give it a good-faith effort. Following are resources to help you do that.
- Helpful charts for figuring out when things are in the Public Domain (have no copyright.)
- UC Davis’ campus ReproGraphics provides excellent service obtaining copyright licenses for materials used in the course readers, syllabi and other materials they produce.
- Simple, generic form letter to ask for permission to use. (PDF, DOC)
- Finding Copyright Owners
- Audiovisual works
- Music
- Multiple media
- CISAC – International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers
- Text
- Visual arts
- Websites
- Old webpages are accessible through the Internet Archive WayBack Machine which may help you in finding copyright owners of materials you previously saw
- Google® can help you find many individuals directly
- Using famous people in your copyrighted works
- In addition to copyright permission, using public persona may require a “right to publicity” license. Roger Richman Agency licenses public persona photos and related miscellaneous (ex: Einstein, Elvis, Marilyn Monroe)
Online sources of easy-to-use copyrighted materials
- Audiovisual works
- UC Davis Hart Media Lab has an online catalog of the many audiovisual works available for student or classroom use.
- Music
A lot of digital music is available online legally without too much effort.
- SmartSound is a fast, easy and cheap source of music; categories include cinematic, documentaries, atmospheric beds, corporate, rock/hip-hop-R&B, weddings & events, TV/promotions/trailers, world/travel and sound effects.
- MagnaTune is very easy to use, has a wide variety including classical music and allows for on-the-spot licensing for all kinds of uses including commercial.
- MusicUnited.org has a long list of legal sites providing various kinds or music under various terms.
- Text
- Library of Congress "American Memories" has historic maps, photos, documents, audio and video
- Project Gutenberg is a library of 17000 free e-books whose copyright has expired in the USA
- MIT OpenCourseWare provides academic course materials that may be reusable
- Visual arts
- Stock.xchang ® has many stock photos you can use for free (move from the visual arts section just above this one)
- FlickrTM is an online photo site, whose advanced search function allows you to search for photos made freely available via a "Creative Commons" license
Note: Inclusion here is informational, not an endorsement. Help us expand this list! If you run across sites which might be of interest to the UC Davis campus community please send a link to copyright@ucdavis.edu.
General educational resources
- UC Office of the President has an excellent copyright site with plain-English explanations of what copyright is and how to use copyright-protected works, as well as UC FAQs and links to all of the systemwide policies. You can learn about "fair use" there as well.
- US Copyright Office has many informative publications as well as the forms to register copyright-protected materials.
Copyright Policies
See Policies
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