How do you know when a book or lecture that you've found on the internet is in the public domain? Even if it's copyrighted, is it OK to print a copy for your personal use? Also, what is the educational exception to copyright law? I understand that if you're a teacher, there are times when you can use copyrighted material for educational purposes only. How do you know when you can do this? Thanks!

All Answers To Questions

Teachers can not, technically, use copyrighted materials in the classroom without approval of the copyright holder. Otherwise, this would only require the purchase of one text book to supply the whole student body ... just photocopying the other books needed. On your other question, about public domain or not: anything produced by an author is automatically copyrighted material. It doesn't need a government stamp of approval. The government stamp is only needed for proof of authenticity. It only becomes public domain is the author grants that use. For personal use, using a photocopy is generally acceptable.

There is a fine line that you need to avoid crossing. It is called "fair use", and it means that you can make limited amounts of copies for educational purposes. I would say that printing one copy for your personal use is fine. A teacher making copies of a part of the book (not the whole book, obviously) for the class is fine too.