Copyright Activity

Sherri Shaner

Fall 2003

The original Fair Use Guidelines covered under the Copyright Act of 1976 do not address any of the current issues surrounding technology. When the original law was enacted, the World Wide Web and multimedia presentations were not even in the vocabulary of educators or lawmakers. For this reason, the guidelines discussed in the following paragraphs are just that, guidelines. Although the guidelines are not legally binding, they do represent an agreement between most educational institutions and copyright holders. Frankly, I found the guidelines difficult to follow and often too vague for my specific question/scenario. The following is my best interpretation of the guidelines with reasons to support my interpretation.

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 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??

According to the Fair Use Guidelines For Educational Multimedia students may create multimedia projects which contain copyrighted materials. Students must use the project for educational use and must only make two copies of the material, one for their portfolio and one for their instructor. In addition, students must credit their sources by displaying all copyright information on the opening page of their project. They must also state that the copyrighted material is protected under the fair use exemption of the Copyright Act of 1976. Since the students are in grade 5, they would not be held to the strict timeline for disposal of projects.

Scenario # 2

• 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.

Mr. Jamweimer must have misread his licensing agreement with the software company. Most software companies do not sell rights to buyers, they sell a license. The software is not covered under the fair use guidelines because the software license supercedes the guidelines. Most software companies allow buyers to make an archival backup copy, but not to distribute it to the whole school. Mr. Jamweimer might want to consider attending a PTA meeting and giving a demonstration of the software. Then maybe the school will purchase a site license and the software will be on every computer in the school.