Violation of copyright law carries substantial penalties. Civil and criminal penalties can be imposed for copyright infringement, including award of actual and punitive monetary damages. When you infringe copyright, you may also be exposing to liability the University and businesses such as copy shops. However, complying with copyright law is often difficult because of the complexity of the rules which govern how and when you can use intellectual property owned by another person or organization. Some of us may be stealing others' intellectual property without knowing it.
Copyrightable expression is original authorship, fixed in a tangible medium of expression.
By this standard, mere facts and ideas cannot be copyrighted. In addition, works created by Federal government employees, titles and short phrases, and works in the public domain are not protected. Among the types of work protected by copyright are literary productions, musical notation and recorded music, pictures and graphics, motion pictures and video footage, databases, Web pages, and computer programs. Similarly, absence of a statement that the work is copyrighted does not mean that you are free to use it. Assume that all material is copyrighted unless its source states clearly that it is not.