COPYRIGHT  ASSIGNMENT

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??
    First of all, yes they can do this, IF they follow the Fair Use Guidelines.  They can use the copyrighted material because it is being used only for instructional purposes.  However, they must "credit the sources, display the copyright notice, and provide copyright ownership information."  It may be a little tricky to find all of that information on some web pages.  They must also "state on the opening screen and on any accompanying print material a notice that certain materials are included under the fair use exemption of the U.S. Copyright."   As long as that monster class is grades K-6, they don't have to worry about the amount of copyright material they use.  Once they have completed their project, they may only keep one copy for themselves and one for the media center and cannot continue to share them for any other than the allowable educational purposes.  If the teacher wanted more information on the fair use guidelines, I would send her to < http://www.education-world.com/a_curr/curr280d.shtml >

You create a web link to the CBS - David Letterman Web page, the Right to Life and the Right to Choice web pages on your school's home page. Your principal instructs you to remove them from the schools links.
    This seems to be more of a question of appropriate material than of copyright infringement.  My understanding of the readings is that it would not be plagiarism.  I believe that it would also not fall under copyright infringement (the unauthorized use of someone else's copyrighted material) because you would just be referring someone to the original site, not using it as your own.  However, if this was really to be done and there were copyright concerns, the thing to do would be to obtain written permission from the copyright owner (or someone acting in the owners authority).  This situation does not fall into the Fair Use Guidelines because the links would not be being used for face-to-face student instruction or directed student self study.  They would be accessible for general browsing without direction or instruction.

Mary Ann Carter
11/24/02
*Note that the material on this page that is contained in quotes is from the following webpage: http://www.education-world.com/a_curr/curr280d.shtml.  
Starr, Linda.  "Applying Fair Use to New Technologies: Part 4 of an Education World series on copyright and fair use". Education World® .
Copyright © 2000 Education World.  These materials are included under the fair use exemption of the U.S. Copyright.