This activity looks at two scenarios in the classroom and how copyright laws are applied and the infractions committed.

Scenario 1

“Mr. Hamer is tutoring for the functional writing test out of a copyrighted series of work books 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 today's class.

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.”

Mr. Hamer should request permission from Houghton Mifflin to copy the extra pages. He has infringed on the copyright. You are allowed two copies not seven. The two copies are used for the educator and one for the library as a backup copy. Material found on the web does not mean it is public domain and available for your use without permission. The laws of copyright infringement are based on whether the original work is adversely affected by this new use, the nature of the work, and how it is being used. An exception to using a copyrighted work is the fair use guidelines that state only 10 percent or 1000 words of a single copyrighted work can be copied. The best rule of thumb is: when in doubt ASK PERMISSION from the author or publisher.

Mrs. Urdvardy has also committed copyright infringement when she downloaded the music and distributed it to her students without permission. The Internet is not public domain. The guidelines under fair use limit the amount of time to 30 seconds or 10 percent of music and lyrics from a single copyrighted musical work. The copyright law for copying music states that fair use guidelines allow educators to use copyrighted works in the following situations: working face to face instruction or directed self-study. Even in these situations the work must display the copyright notice, credit the source, and provide copyright ownership information.

Scenario Two

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.

Though Mr. Jamweimer had good intentions and made all of the children Einsteins he committed copyright infringement. He was entitled to educate Einstein but he was not legally allowed to share the software program with the whole school. The manufacturer was losing income that he was entitled to by all of the students using the program but only purchasing one copy. To keep your school legal do not install personal commercial or shareware software on school computers, don’t make copies of personal commercial software and share, don’t make copies of software licensed to your school and share, don’t use shareware for extended periods without paying for it.