Copyright Do's and Don'ts for Nurses and Educators

Nurse Beth, MSN

I always say, You need to know the rules before you decide to break them... or not!

As a certified Nursing Professional Development Specialist and a writer, I had to learn about copyright rules. I'd like to share what I learned.

Amanda is an educator and is preparing a PowerPoint presentation. She needs an image of a hospital so she goes to Google Images and types in "hospital". She pulls up hundreds of images, picks one, right-clicks, copies, and drops it into her PowerPoint.

She misses the link that says "image may be subject to copyright". If she had clicked on the link, she most likely would have learned that the image is copyright-protected.

Brad, a clinical instructor, finds a good article on trach care in the AJN journal he subscribes to. He makes 15 copies of the article and distributes them to his students. Is this OK? It depends.

He must check his journal for their wording on copyright.

Here's CriticalCareNurse Journal's wording: No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage retrieval system without permission of AACN
Another journal specifies, "Nursing faculty may photocopy up to 100 copies for educational purposes", which is really nice, but not common.

A group of nursing students makes a cute video choreographed to a popular song. If you create a movie and add a soundtrack, that music is likely subject to copyright. That is why some YouTubers who stream music in the background of their videos have had to take them down. It's also why there is so much bad music as background on, say, makeup tutorials (YouTubers have to find copyright-free music).

Attribution

Myth: If you give credit or attribution (name the creator or author), you can use the image. Not true.

Attribution is giving credit to the creator, author or photographer.

Attribution is nice, but it is not permission to reproduce.

If I take a picture and upload it to the internet, I am not giving permission for it to be reproduced and used by others in any way they see fit. As the artist and creator of the photography, I hold the copyright for my lifetime plus 70 years.

Public Domain

Creative materials not protected by intellectual property laws such as copyright, or trademark, are said to be in the public domain. Being in the public domain means they are owned by the public and not by any single individual.

For example, works of the government belong to the American public and can be reproduced under public domain. As an educator, I can search for graphs, photos, and so on the CDC website. However, even some images on government sites are protected by copyright. Look for the words. In that case, the government had to get permission, and you do, too.

I found some great photos of tubing misconnections on the FDA website and did not have to ask for permission!

Asking Permission

To use someone else's song, image or footage, contact the creator and ask for permission to reproduce. I have done this many times. I make it personal and tell them it's for staff development to educate nurses and often get a good response.

They may say Yes, or Yes, with attribution, or Yes if for a small class but not for large distribution, or Yes, but do not modify. They also may say No, but I haven't had that happen.

Get the permission in writing and keep it in your records.

What You Can Do

Use works from creativecommons.org.
Give your students the link to an internet page if possible, say the trach care article, but do not distribute the article yourself.
Get a subscription to Getty images (expensive) or Stock Photos. Just Google image subscription and find a plan that works for you.
When using Word or PowerPoint, use their links to images. Microsoft owns stock images and links to them in Word and PowerPoint (you can use them).
Take your own pictures.

Low Risk

People laugh and say to me, "Well, seriously, I'm not going to get in trouble for stealing an image from Google.”

True, it is low risk, but as an educator and nurse, you are acting on behalf of the facility, not yourself. The facility is at risk since your creations are the intellectual property of your organization.

If you are an educator, one of your core roles is being a role model, and well, it's just professional.

Best,

Nurse Beth

Copyright Do's and Don'ts for Nurses and Educators

Attribution

Public Domain

Asking Permission

What You Can Do

Low Risk

About Nurse Beth, MSN

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