Sara: Welcome to the podcast! Today we have Gordon Speagle with us. Hi, Gordon!

Gordon: Hi, Sara! How are you doing today?

Sara: I’m doing great. Today we’re going to myth-bust. Specifically we’re going to bust some copyright myths. Are you ready for that, Gordon?

Gordon: I’m ready to bust away, Sara.

Sara: Great. Well, can you tell our listening public a little bit about yourself?

Gordon: My name is Gordon Speagle. I’m an academic advisor at the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois, and I stay away from revolving doors.

Sara: That’s a good idea. Now, do you know anything about copyright?

Gordon: I know you can run afoul with copyright rules if you’re not paying attention.

Sara: Okay, so you basically know nothing about copyright. This is what we’re trying to communicate. In this game, I tried to recruit someone who did not know too much about copyright in order to see what the general public might think so we can myth bust. How does that sound?

Gordon: Sounds great. You found a wonderful willing and ignorant individual to have on the podcast.

Sara: Perfect! So this game is called two copyright truths and a lie. I’m going to read three statements for you, and you need to decide which is the lie. Pretty simple, right?

Gordon: It is.

Sara: Well, let’s practice on something totally unrelated to copyright. Which one is the lie? The sky is blue. The night sky is rainbow-colored. The grass is green.

Gordon: Hm…cue the jeopardy music.

Sara: This one’s tricky.

Gordon: As much as I’d like it to be true, I’m going to go with the second option is the one that is not true.

Sara: Correct. So now that you know how to play, let’s try some copyright related statements. First, if I scribble on a piece of paper, that’s generally enough to create a copyright. Second, anything that is on the unrestricted World Wide Web is free to use because the owner has waived copyright. Or three, I have the option to put a copyright symbol on my work if I want to.

Gordon: Hm…I would say that number one is going to be false.

Sara: This is why I love you, Gordon, because you’re completely incorrect. But, but this is a common copyright myth. Actually copyright is really easy to obtain. All you need to do is fix something, which means write it down or record it, that is minimally creative. And minimally creative is at a really low bar, so some of your child’s artwork likely works, and I don’t mean scribbling by just creating a few lines, but anything resembling artwork is copyrightable. The thing that most people think is true is that anything on the unrestricted World Wide Web is free to use because the owner has waived copyright, but that’s just not true. And I do want to bust that myth. Even if it doesn’t look like it’s copyright protected, even if it’s easy to access and it’s open to access, it doesn’t mean that they have somehow waived copyright protection. So we’ll get more into the weeds on that one later. Let’s go to another round of “do you know the copyright myth.” So first, I have to put a copyright symbol on my work to have a copyright. Second, everything before 1923 that was published in the United States is in the public domain and free to