What is Copyright?
Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States to the authors of "original works of authorship". Under "Fair Use", educators and students may utilize (fairly use) certain copyrighted works without breaking the copyright laws. But there are limits to what constitutes "fair use".

What are Copyrighted Works?
The list includes: literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. Copyright protection is available to both published and unpublished works.

How do you break the "copyright" law?
Most people would never consider stealing something that did not belong to them. However, most people do not realize that when they copy software without authorization, they are in fact doing just that. They are stealing someone's intellectual property, which is protected by the copyright law. If you copy a song, a software program, a magazine article or story you found online, without the permission of the author/owner, you could be in danger of breaking the law. This is especially true if you are not making solely educational use of the item you copied.