Scenario One: 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. She recommends 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??

Reflection: Teachers with whom I have worked in the past have allowed students to use pictures from anywhere in any quantity on projects without citations, and it really worries me that we're sending the wrong message about not only fair use but also intellectual property. Based on my current understanding of copyright, I believe the teacher in the above scenario was a bit irresponsible. It is true that the students may use pictures from the sites in their presentations, but there are limits to the amount of pictures that can be used as well as regulations regarding citation. I believe the teacher should do one of two things:

She should download pictures herself (ensuring that she used 10% or 15 or fewer pictures from a collection, whichever is less, etc) and put them into labeled folders on the school's intranet for student-use. In addition, she should instruct the students on putting the proper copyright notice and citations into their presentations. Rowdy or not, we don't want them infringing on copyright.

If the teacher does not have time to download all the pictures she needs herself, she should make the "Multimedia Fair Use Guidelines" part of the lesson, instruct students on reasonable limits, require citations, and make this part of their grade. Then, the responsibility is in the hands of the students, and they are likely to learn from it and understand the seriousness of it.

(In addition, she might invite the media specialist in to help with such a lesson!)

Scenario Two: 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.

Reflection: Unfortunately, our Nobel Prizes are built on copyright infringement. In order for a school to download multiple copies of software for simultaneous use, a site license must be purchased. Mr. Jamweimer purchased a copy for home use and is preventing the author from financial gains that could be earned by selling it to the school or other parents. Since this use infringes on the market value of the software, it is not fair use, and the school should remove the software before it has a lawsuit on its hands. I'd hate to be the staffer to break that news, but it's the right thing to do.