1. Copyrights?

Copyrights refer to a right that belongs to a creator regarding the "works" which express an idea or ideology in a poem, fiction, music, art, film, play, etc.

Copyrights are automatically formed at the moment of the invention of such "works" (hereinafter-copyrighted works),

and creators shall reserve various rights such as reproduction right and distribution right which allow the holder to publish and distribute the original works,

also the adaptation right that enables the works to be adapted into different forms is reserved by the original creator as well.

Thus, any attempts for reproduction and for making any derivative works or compilation works based on the original works shall be made after getting the original creator's permission.

If any book or painting is copied and used without the original creator's permission, this shall result in the infringement of copyrights.

The copyright holder, in that case, may file a claim for civil damages or demand a punishment under the criminal law (accuse) against the defendant.

The damages shall be calculated based on the profits gained by the infringer through the infringement or an amount that could normally be obtained when exercising rights (clause 125) and so on.

2. The limits of Copyrights - Fair Use

There are a few exceptions in the usage of copyrighted works without the copyright holder's permission, yet those differ by country.

In accordance with Korean law, in case of the usage in the purpose of school education, quotation of published works, reproduction as an exam questions,

then fair use of copyrighted works shall limit the protection of copyrights for public interests.

US law considers the cases of fair use when using the copyrighted works for commentary, criticism, research, teaching, or news reporting. The four factors of fair use are as follows.

1) The purpose and character of the use

(Including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes, courts identify whether the use of copyright-protected material is "transformative," or whether it merely copies from the original)

2) The nature of the copyrighted work

(Using material from primarily factual works is more likely to be fair use than using purely fictional works)

3) The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole

(Whether the use borrowed small or large portion of material from an original work matters)

4) The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work

(Uses that harm the copyright owner's ability to profit from their original work are less likely to be fair uses)

Although copyright is infringed in an apparent (external) manner, if the four factors above are satisfied, then the case in question shall be interpreted as fair use, and no punishment shall be imposed.

Simply speaking, copyright holders may not be able to assert infringement when in case of using the copyrighted work not excessively for the non-profit-making purpose in the education field.

3. Caution

Whether it fits with the purpose of education, if the original creator claims the usage since the lecture resource is used worldwide, beyond the country's border,

then appropriate compensation may have to be paid.

Content provider has to be careful to use someone else's copyrights for his resources even when he thinks it is in the scope of fair use

because the fair use may not be concluded by the court depending on the facts of each case.

Therefore, Content provider shall carefully use others' copyrighted works within the scope of fair use,

and in case that he wants to use such works more than the scope of fair use, he has to get permission or license from the original creator.

We indicate that we are not responsible for any copyright issues. All responsibilities regarding copyrights belong to the Content provider.

4. CCL (Creative Common License)

Creative Commons licenses give everyone from individual creators to large institutions a standardized way to grant the public permission to use their creative work under copyright law.

The Content Provider shall use Creative Commons in order to allow free and open distribution and use of contents.

We strongly recommends Content provider to select the ‘Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike’ (CC-BY-NC-SA) option.

This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for non-commercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.

If reusers remix, adapt or build upon the material, they must license the modified material under identical terms.

For the further information, please check https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/

(Source: Creative Commons Home, https://creativecommons.org)