Citing Your Sources
Copyright is a body of legal rights that insures that the person who creates a work—
whether a book, an article, a piece of music, a graphic, a dance, or even a website—is
protected from unlawful reproduction and distribution of his or her intellectual work.
Without copyright protection, there would be no economic
incentive to create these works.
Most information is protected by copyright. The exception is work that is in the "public
domain"
. This type of information may be reproduced or used by anyone, but it is still
necessary to credit the source. Some examples of public domain sources:
Public Domain Sources
Works produced and published by the U.S. Government
Stastical Abstract of the United States
Works where copyright has been waived by the author
Lansing Community College Library
Works on which the copyright has expired
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Hamlet, by William Shakespeare