Question

can someone help me Find a copyright-free picture to use in presentation, or make a sketch of chosen invertebrate. Explain how body plan and anatomy enables invertebrate to perform the essential functions it needs to survive. Explain how your chosen invertebrate fits into the cladogram of invertebrates. Chordates (not a primate) Choose chordate to research. Find a copyright-free picture to use in presentation or make a sketch of chosen chordate. Explain how body plan and anatomy enables chordate to perform the essential functions it needs to survive. Explain how your chosen chordate fi

Answer 1

@chris13720 There is no such thing, in the USA, as copyright free. All works are copyrighted by default, and you can register them with the government for more protection; basically, you can get more money if someone infringes on your work.

However, there are several exemptions to copyright law. A crucial aspect of USA and most international copyright laws are the concept of "fair-use". In the USA you can use other people's works without fear of legal issues* so long as it is for certain uses. These uses include educational purposes, commentary purposes, satire, news, and others. If it is for something like a school project you should cite it to avoid having plagiarism issues, but there are no copyright issues.

I teach and in most lectures I try to show where I got the photos, but I don't do it in all cases and that is fine. It is even okay if those lecture slides end up being accessible to the public, but again you should cite that it is not your work.

Now the *: While you may be legally okay in using them, in very rare cases copyright holders have tried to sue anyway. in these cases, if the person was protected by fair-use, they won the case and one lawyers fees. I have never read of a single case of this type of thing happening to someone using the images in a clearly educational project.

Feel free to ask more if you are interested; I have a great interest in USA copyright and patent laws.

Answer 2

Oh, I take it back. There is one time when something is free of any copyright restriction. In the USA, any works commissioned or made by the the USA government are in the public domain (as are some really old works) and there is never a time when you can be punished for using these works.

Answer 3

Being really old isn't 100% safe though as the laws have changed on the age requirements. It can be complicated by other things. You cannot copyright a dictionary for just the words, but you can copyright the design of the dictionary, the font used in it, the over art, etc. The same goes for old books that are reprinted, like the Barnes and Noble classic collections. The text itself is not copyrighted but the layout, cover art, etc is.