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Finding & Using Online Images

Use images to support your presentations, engage your audience, and to punctuate or demonstrate your topic when writing papers and assignments. Learn where to find online images and how to use them legally and ethically.

Use of Images & Copyright

 

We live in a world that is image dense.  For college projects and assignments - online (blogs & wikis, COTROnline Moodle) and print (assignments, papers, projects, posters) - we are using images to support or punctuate text-based work.

Most commonly, images are protected by copyright laws around the world and permission is required to use the image as is, or to adapt it. 

There are as many exceptions as there are rules.  Please review this information regarding copyright guidelines for the use of images to which College staff, faculty and students adhere.

Copyright & Images

Copyright at College of the Rockies

 

College of the Rockies is currently operating under the Canadian Copyright Act, Access Copyright's College Premium Licence Agreement and its  Permissions and has adopted the Association of Canadian Community Colleges (ACCC's) Fair Dealing Policy.

 What is copyright?  

The Canadian Copyright Act is a federal statute governing the use and reproduction of intellectual property in Canada and protecting the rights of creators. As stated in the Act , “copyright, in relation to a work, means the sole right to produce or reproduce the work or any substantial part thereof in any material form whatever, to perform the work or any substantial part thereof in public or, if the work is unpublished, to publish the work or any substantial part thereof."

In Canada, a work is protected by copyright from the moment of creation and lasts for the life of the creator plus 50 years.  After that, it becomes 'public domain'.

Access Copyright is the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency which licences educational institutions across Canada to copy (both print and digital) portions of published works for day-to-day classroom use and for the production of course packs, while still protecting the rights of the copyright owners.

Fair Dealing, Sections 29, 29.1, and 29.2 of the Copyright Act is a user's right permitting use, or "dealing", with a copyright-protected work without permission of the copyright holder or payment of copyright royalties. The dealing must be for an allowable purpose and must be fair.