With the advent of electronic media and computer technology,
many issues and questions concerning copyright violations are presented.
Below are a two scenarios involving copyright issues.
After each scenario, there is a response to each situation.
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??
Response: Under copyright law, anything that is published or printed, whether a book or web site is protected. Educational fair use laws allow some of the copyright laws to be suspended under certain conditions for the purpose of learning. When it comes to computers and the internet there is even more gray areas and sometimes limited consensus. The teacher in question, allowed to take images from other web sites for her students to use in power point presentations. However, the amount of time the students would be permitted to use the power points may be limited. Also, the power point presentations would have to be for educational purposes and could not be posted as a website or used for profit.
An alternative idea for the teacher
would be to incorporate letter writing to gain permission as part of the
student's learning experience. Then, students would be able receive
a valuable lesson on copyright and responsibility. Finally,
another idea would be for the teacher to have students search for other
sites where graphics were given freely with permission.
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.
Response: Congratulations to all the successful students at our school
for winning the Nobel Prize!! Unfortunately what Mr. Jamweimer did
was illegal. Mr. Jamweimer would most likely be allowed to install
one copy on one computer in the school, if he provided proper documentation
showing that he had legally obtained permission to download the file and
that he was not in violation of having another copy at his home.
However, installing or sharing the software without buying a site license
or class license would be illegal, even if it were for educational use.