Linda Ferrara

SLM521

Spring 2005

Scenario #1: Ms. Hamer is tutoring for the functional writing test out of a copyrighted series of workbooks from Houghtin Mifflin. He has 27 students but only 20 books were purchased for his class. The same material is available at the HM web page. She prints enough pages for her kids each morning for the day's class.

This is an infringement of the 1976 Copyright Act. This does not fall under the guise of “fair use” because the law deems it to be illegal to copy consumables, including workbooks. Since the same material can be found on the HM web page, one might think that it would no longer be considered a “workbook” and Ms. Hamer could print a single copy for educational purposes or if she were printing only part of the material each day, she could do this for up to 9 days. However, I think a workbook is a workbook, whether printed or on the Web, and she should either get copyright permission ASAP or purchase the necessary books ASAP!

Scenario #2: Mr. Jamweimer, the parent of one of your 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 downloaded 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.

I think this is an infringement of the Copyright Act. When Mr. Jamweimer paid for his downloaded software, he did so for his child’s personal single use. Distributing it for the use of several other children would not be fair use and would infringe upon the software manufacturer’s right to profit from the market value of the product. While fair use does apply to software that has been purchased, as has this, most software is licensed to the user who is beholden to the licensing agreement. In which case, Mr. Jamweimer is not acting in accordance to his licensing agreement for a single use copy. He may not install his software on several school computers. It may possible to use it on one classroom computer for educational purposes with prior permission from the software manufacturer. However, as described in scenario #2, Mr. Jamweimer is not in accordance with copyright laws.

Resources for this paper:

A Visit to Copyright Bay, http://www.stfrancis.edu/cid/copyrightbay/index.htm

http://www.education-world.com/a_curr/curr280d.shtml