Anthony Rettig

SLM 521 – Copyright and Piracy

Scenario 1 - A teacher in your school (who has a really rowdy bunch of monsters) makes an agreement with them that they learn how to make PowerPoint 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??

Yes, this activity is allowable. The above-described scenario falls under the fair use guidelines for multimedia projects. The guidelines are not considered law, but simply a widely agreed upon set of “Fair Use” practices to protect educators and students while respecting the intellectual and material property of the creators.

The broad scope of the teacher’s project expectations makes addressing copyright implications difficult. This assignment could potentially involve pictures, artwork, audio, video, animations, and written materials. The first and most important watermark test of copyright implications and fair use regard the intention and purpose of the assignment. In this case, it is clear the assignments intentions are “educational uses in the course for which they were created.”

Despite falling under the umbrella of legitimacy for educational use, there are several contingencies the teacher must ensure are followed. Most basic of these is crediting the author. Students must ensure all materials used in the project state the source, author, title, publisher, and includes a copyright notice. Secondly, the opening screen of these PowerPoint presentations must state that copyrighted materials are included in the project following guidelines under the U.S. Copyright Law and guidelines for multimedia fair use.

Other contingencies address amount of media to be included in the project. There are specifications for all media types. A few examples are: limiting audio to 30 seconds or 10% of its length, limiting text to 10% or 1000 words from one source, 10% or 3 minutes maximum of a copyrighted motion video, 5 pictures from one artist and no more than 15 from one published source. The scenario also refers to the students as a “rowdy bunch of monsters”. This is an accurate description of most 6^th graders I have met. The guidelines specifically exempt K-6 students from any portion limits.

The general guidelines pertaining to multimedia projects and presentations are liberal enough that the legitimate use of protected materials by students and teachers is not limited so severely as to preclude the creation of a purposeful and worthwhile presentation.

Scenario 2: 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.

No, this activity is not allowable. The guidelines for educational use of music are very simple and clear. In all instances described regarding the copying of audio music, the practice is limited to a single allowable copy. In addition to that, the original must be owned by the school or teacher. In this scenario, it is unclear whether or not the song downloaded was public domain, from a pay-per-download service, or from a county-owned multimedia library site. The guidelines specifically address this scenario under the prohibitions section “Copying for the purpose of substituting for the purchase of music”. This is what the teacher is doing. Provided the music is copyrighted, the teacher would have to gain specific permission from the owner of the audio material or pay for each student’s copy if it is a “pay-for” service in order to be an allowable activity.