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Finding Images: Is the image protected by copyright?

The Copyright Act gives you the right to copy it for the purposes of research, private study, education, parody or satire, or criticism or review, or news reporting.

The Copyright Act sets numerous conditions on legal copying. First and foremost, the copying must be fair. However, the Copyright Act does not define what is fair. The meaning of the "fair dealing" right is interpreted in the rulings of the Copyright Board of Canada and Canadian courts.

According to the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada, it is fair to copy "short excerpts from a copyright-protected work." In the case of images, a short excerpt means "an entire artistic work (including a painting, print, photograph, diagram, drawing, map, chart, and plan) from a copyright-protected work containing other artistic works."

Fair Dealiing Guidelines. Council of Ministers of Education, Canada