Copyright protects expression -- your expression and that of others. All original expression is eligible for copyright protection as soon as it is fixed in a tangible form: In fact, almost all original expression is protected as soon as it is expressed. Virtually everything you can upload and download on the Web is protected by copyright.
Ideas, facts, titles, names, short phrases, and blank forms
While it is easy to download and copy files (text, photographs, graphics, sound, movies, etc.) from the Web, you must have permission from the copyright holder to use them on your own Web pages (or anywhere else). Under the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the University is obligated to take appropriate action if it receives a complaint that copyrighted material is being published over our network without permission from the copyright holder.
The standard Northwestern University footer contains a copyright notice. If you wish to use copyrighted material, send a Copyright Request Form (pdf) to the content owner.