3. Infringing copyright

Copyright gives the copyright owner exclusive right to control the copying and distribution of copyrighted work. Copyright is infringed when the exclusive rights of the owner are violated, such as when a copyrighted work is copied, reproduced and used without the owner's permission. This includes downloading, copying and printing material from the Internet. To avoid infringement, it is necessary to obtain permission to copy and use the material from the appropriate person or organization, that is, the copyright owner.

There are some exceptions to copyright infringement. In the education area, allowances are made to use copyright materials for research and study without permission, although there are still limits on how this can occur. Only a portion of the material may be used and it must be used for non-commercial purposes. Therefore, an association may use educational material within those limits for delivering community education programmes, without permission and without infringing copyright.

Community associations often share information with each other, and allow other associations to reproduce material, as long as proper acknowledgement is given. It is important to understand that the permission to use all or part of a work cannot be assumed, even if acknowledgement is made. This is particularly the case if the material is going to be part of a bigger work to be sold for profit. Permission granted for one purpose is not permission to use the material for other purposes.

Some materials will detail in the work itself how the work can and can't be reproduced, in which case permission can be implied as long as the conditions are followed.