Copyright Assignment

By: Katie Haley

• 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.

In this scenario there is no problem with Mr. Jamweimer using this software since it was paid for. Usually when someone pays for software they are not buying it, they are simply licensing to use it. So I do believe there would be a copyright infringement for copying the software and giving it the others to use. Most licensing agreements do not authorize the use of the software by anyone but the licensee. This would be a situation where Mr. Jamweimer would need to go over his agreement with the software company.

• 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??

In this scenario, I think that this project is okay as long as the students understand that the graphics are owned by someone else. Students cannot replicate this information outside of their educational purpose. “According to the Fair Use Guidelines For Educational Multimedia copyrighted information may be used for face to face student instruction, educational uses in courses for which the item was created. Students must also be aware that in order to use this information they must credit sources, display copyright notice, and provide copyright information. Students are unable to make more than two copies of the information, one for their records and one for their media center. Additionally, students may only use 5 photo or illustrations by 1 person or no more than 15 images or 10%, whichever is less, of photos from a single published source.”