Copy, Paste… Oops: My First Lesson in Copyright

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Image generated by AI


    A few years ago, my manager asked me to prepare our quarterly business review presentation for the executive committee. It was my first experience preparing executive presentations and I wanted to create an impressive presentation with attractive visuals so it wouldn’t be just boring text and graphs. I went online and copied images that I thought would work well and make the presentation more engaging.

    I worked hard to make sure the presentation was strong. When I shared it with my manager for review, I was surprised that he did not accept it, saying it violated copyright. This feedback really surprised me. The images I used were all available on the internet. It was the first time I realized that using images online is not always appropriate, especially when it breaches copyright law. He directed me to our corporate branding website to use images and templates that were officially provided for this purpose.

    Before this situation, I honestly didn’t think much about copyright. If I found an article, image, or video online that looked useful for training, my first instinct was, “Great, I’ll just use this.” But after learning more about copyright and fair use, I realized how easy it is to unintentionally misuse someone else’s work.

    Copyright isn’t just a suggestion or a guideline. It’s the law, and it automatically protects original works like articles, images, videos, music, and training materials the moment they’re created. That means just because something is easy to download or copy doesn’t mean we’re allowed to use it.

For HRD professionals, this is more important than it sounds. We constantly build presentations, e-learning modules, handouts, and internal communications. It’s tempting to copy an image from Google, share a paid article with the whole team, or add a song to a training video. But those actions can violate copyright if we don’t have permission.

Comments

  1. dkmr88February 15, 2026 at 10:41 AM

    Very good blog and great information to convey. I believe a lot of people have been in your same type of situation. How often do you think that this happens in the world? The part that I think is tough is that most people are not doing anything on purpose, they have the best of intentions when they use this information. The internet is a complete mix of copy write items and free use items, doing the work to ensure that you can use it sometimes gets lost. Just cause you can access the information does not mean you have the ability to use it freely. Thank you for talking about your experience and sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. WessamFebruary 15, 2026 at 7:46 PM

    Thank you for your comment. I think situation happens to many people all over the world. It is no culture-specific. Many people think - out of good intention - that if it is online and I can access it by just googling, then it is free and available for use, which happens not to be always the case. I believe that schools and organizations need to educate people about copyright and fair use and spread awareness about this important topic.

    ReplyDelete

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