Terry Young

SLM 521

· 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, Rock Music Hall of Fame. They make great presentations and become great kids. What are the copyright implications??

I found support to this example at http://www.education-world.com/a_curr/curr280d.shtml The site provides guidelines to multimedia projects that contain copyright materials. Overall, it states that the students can use the websites for educational purposes only! If the students are using the graphics solely for their power point presentations, and nothing else, then they are permitted to do so. There are limits to the amount of graphics that can be used, but there are no restrictions on elementary students. If a student uses graphics from an Internet site, they must give that site credit. By doing this, the students are following the “fair use” law, which states that someone may use copyrighted work without permission for something as long as it doesn’t divert income from the creator. As a project that is done in class, the teacher has control over the amount of graphics and copies that are created. In addition, these projects may not be duplicated or used for any purpose other than what the teacher has intended them for without permission from the copyright owners. This is a legal use of the graphics.

· Mr. Jamweimer, the parent of one of our most intellectual students, has paid to download a wonderful computer software program for his little Einstein. Mr. Jamweimer wants "our school" to be the best and sends a copy of the download file to be used by the students on the computers at school. P.S. all of the kids use it and win Nobel prizes in science, literature, physics, chemistry, and playground.

The fair use of computer software is another topic discussed at http://www.education-world.com/a_curr/curr280d.shtml It’s great that everyone won a Nobel prize, but they did it illegally. Just because Mr. Jamweimer purchased the software, it doesn’t give him the right to make a copy of the program. He is only able to use that software on his home computer. The license to use the software is for the person who buys it. Just because he bought the program, he does not own the rights of the program. In other words, he cannot duplicate it and share it with the entire school. This was very thoughtful of him, but he illegally copied the program. If he wanted the school to be “the best,” he should have shared the software with the school, and suggested that they buy it for their computer lab. Most licensing agreements do not allow users to copy and distribute software. In conclusion, Mr. Jamweimer is not allowed to do what he did.