Getting Permission for and Using Copyrighted Internet Sources

When you gather information from Internet sources and use it in your own work, it’s subject to the same rules that govern information gathered from other types of sources.

A growing number of online works, including books, photographs, music, and video, are published under the Creative Commons license, which often eliminates the need to request permission. These works — marked with a Creative Commons license — are made available to the public under this alternative to copyright, which grants permission to reuse or remix work under certain terms if credit is given to the work’s creator.

Even if the material does not include a copyright notice or symbol (“© 2016 by Andrea A. Lunsford and John J. Ruszkiewicz,” for example), it’s likely to be protected by copyright laws, and you may need to request permission to use part or all of it. “Fair use” legal precedents allow writers to quote brief passages from published works without permission from the copyright holder if the use is for educational or personal, noncommercial reasons and if full credit is given to the source. For blog postings or any serious professional uses (especially online), however, you should ask permission of the copyright holder before you include any of his/her ideas, text, or images in your own argument.

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If you do need to make a request for permission, here is an example:

Dear Professor Litman:

I am writing to request permission to quote from your essay “Copyright, Owners’ Rights and Users’ Privileges on the Internet: Implied Licenses, Caching, Linking, Fair Use, and Sign-on Licenses.” I want to quote some of your work as part of an article I am writing for the Stanford Daily to explain the complex debates over ownership on the Internet and to argue that students at my school should be participating in these debates. I will give full credit to you and will cite the URL where I first found your work (msen.com/~litman/dayton.htm).

Thank you very much for considering my request.

Raul Sanchez