Copyright, Piracy, and
Ethics
Scenario: “A teacher in your
school (who has a really rowdy bunch of monsters) makes an agreement with them
that they learn how to make power point presentations on sports, war, hunting,
rock music and such. She lets them get graphics from anywhere on the Internet.
Sites such as Sports Illustrated, ESPN. DOD,
The
teacher in this scenario would be allowed to do this activity with her
students, with certain restrictions, based on the Fair Use Act. According to the “Applying Fair Use to New
Technologies” article by Linda Starr, students are allowed to “create
educational multimedia projects containing copyrighted materials to use their
projects for educational uses in the course fro which they were created.” In other words, if the purpose of the course
was for the students to learn to make a Power Point presentation, then they are
permitted to use material from the internet in their projects. There are, however, some guidelines that must
be met. Students must first of all
credit the source of their material, display the copyright notice, and
copyright ownership information in their presentations. The article also suggests that the message
that “certain materials are included under the fair use exemption of the U.S.
Copyright Law and have been prepared according to the multimedia fair use
guidelines and are restricted from further use” needs to be displayed on the
opening screen.
There are also restrictions as to how
much of this material a student may use.
Students in K-6 are exempt from “adhering strictly” to the guidelines,
but all students are expected to follow the general ideas. There are guidelines as to how many copies of
the project are permitted, how long the projects may be used, and that they may
not be “replicated or distributed” for any reason, other than those in the Fair
Use Act. There are also limits to how
many pictures come from each site and how much of the presentation is compiled
of these pictures. There are rules about
how many pictures you use from each photographer, each site, and so on.
Basically, the teacher would be
allowed to continue with this activity, but I would strongly advise that she
reads up on the Fair Use Act before she does!
There are so many more limitations and guide lines than I ever could
have imagined!
Scenario: Mrs. Urdvardy, a music
teacher, downloads MP3 files from the Web and uses them to instruct her
students in the various kinds of music. She allows students to copy the files
and take them home, listen to them and complete a worksheet.
Poor Mrs. Urdvardy is headed to the
big house! Well, probably not the big
house but she is definitely in violation of the copy right laws. According to the Copy Right Quiz in the
“Educator’s Guide to Copy Right and Fair Use” by Tech Learning, if she
downloaded the files from MP3.com, she would be allowed to use the MP3 files in
her lessons because their material is “legitimately acquired.” That doesn’t include her copying and
distributing the material though. The
article also states that while she would be allowed to use the material in
class, “under the current law, no teacher can redistribute such material over
the Net or any other medium.” The
article also puts that in laymen’s terms, “you can use it, but you can’t spread
it around.”
Now, if Mrs. Urdvardy was completely
determined to create this CD and to distribute it to her students, there is
still a way. She would have to get
permission from the copy right holders and pay royalties for the use of the
material, a little much if you ask me!
Citations:
TechLearning. The Educators
Guide to Copyright and Fair Use.
Starr, Linda. Education World. Applying
Fair Use to New Technologies.
2000.