Attached Link: http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-fairuse.html

Mason, A couple of minor corrections... Frankenstein (the original novel) is indeed in the public domain. Also the "permanent" copyright on Peter Pan is limited to England. In Canada, USA, et al it has fallen into the public domain because of age. Snoopy101, I believe what your teacher was referring to was the "fair use" exception in copyright law which does allow you to use small portions of someone elses work w/o premission for purposes of parody, education, or news reporting. It is not an excuse for taking a work in its entirety & reusing it for your own purposes. regaltwo, Copyright law is not assumptive. Receiving no answer cannot be taken as tacit permission. The link above is to the US copyright office FAQ pages. It should answer any other copyright question you might have.