Copyright, plagiarism, and fair use all have their separate meaning. Often times, the first two are mistaken as the same. Very rarely does plagiarism and copyright come up in the same incident. With that in mind, not all reuse of material is considered copyright or plagiarism, but fair use. We will discuss the three in detail.

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Copyright is the unauthorized use of the original owners work. Often times when a copyright is broken, someone is using the other persons material to hurt the original owners work or gain some type of value for themselves.

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Plagiarism is using and claiming someone elses work as your on. In most cases it not a legal matter, but is an unethical issue. Plagiarism can be committed by mistake in many instances. The rule of thumb is, if you are not sure if it is the authors original work, then give them credit for it.

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Fair use is the grey area for copyright infringement. Fair use allows someone to use a smaller portion of someones work without breaking the copy right laws. For example, using a 10 second clip from a song to put in a presentation could be considered fair use depending on what the purpose is. Using fair use in education often times allows for more flexibility .

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(Baily, 2005)