Skip Navigation
Skip to Menu Toggle Button

Online Guide to Writing and Research Academic Integrity and Documentation

Giving Credit to Sources

Copyright Laws

Just like you want to receive credit for your hard work in your classes, so do creators want to receive credit for their work. Copyright laws protect intellectual property and make copying the words, expressions of ideas, illustrations, and products of others a crime. This includes the right to have authorship recognized. These laws are designed specifically to protect writers and artists from exploitation and are in effect both here and abroad. Most written works are protected by copyright in the countries where they were published. In the United States, copyright laws extend to works of literature and scholarship, as well as to artistic expressions in other media.

How are copyright laws connected to Academic Integrity?

Writers who accurately and appropriately credit the original materials used in their work avoid plagiarism and do not violate copyright law. Writers who plagiarize violate copyright laws. 

Key Takeaway

Writers must give credit to the creators of the original materials to adhere to copyright laws. 


Mailing Address: 3501 University Blvd. East, Adelphi, MD 20783
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. © 2022 UMGC.
All links to external sites were verified at the time of publication. UMGC is not responsible for the validity or integrity of information located at external sites.

Table of Contents: Online Guide to Writing