Is a student violating copyright if using a government website?

Answer 1

Probably not. US copyright law says that works prepared by an officer or employee of the US Federal Government as part of that person's official duties are specifically NOT entitled to domestic copyright protection. See in particular Section 105 of the Copyright Act.

The US government asserts that it CAN hold the copyright to such works in foreign countries. I'm not certain that this has ever actually been tested, nor is it likely that the US government really cares much about some foreign student copying a section off one of its public websites for a homework assignment, and it seems a little dodgy legally anyway for it to assert that the fruits of its labor are freely available to anyone within the US (regardless of their citizenship status) but not to anyone outside the US (regardless of their citizenship status) and I think most foreign courts would regard this assertion with a healthy degree of scepticism.

Works by state government officers or employees are not covered by this provision. Florida and California have passed laws saying all such works produced by their state employeees and officials are in the public domain; many other states do this as a matter of policy, but don't actually have a law stating they have to.

It's also complicated if the government official/employee is merely collating works produced by contractors or outside agencies, which may retain copyright on that portion they produced.

However, all in all, it's more likely than not that a student using information from a government website is NOT violating any copyrights, unless the website or work in question specifically contains a notice that the work or portions of it are copyright by some individual or organization.

Plagiarism, now, that's a different situation, and would need to be evaluated on a case by case basis.