Copyright
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,
Response:
In
the case of the teacher who allows her rowdy students to use graphics anywhere
on the internet to complete PowerPoint presentations there is very little
copyright issues. The students have
complete and total right to download copyrighted material, as long as it is
being used to complete an assignment for school. The only issue would arise is if the student
got the graphics from a site that charged to download their graphics. If one student did pay to download the
graphics, then he or she would be the only ones allowed to use the
graphics. It would also be important to
site where the graphics were downloaded from.
As for beyond that particular year, it would be critical to site the
sources of the graphics if the teacher was ever to present any of them as part
of a workshop or some other presentation.
Situation:
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:
In
the case of the parent who paid to download a software program and then gave
the program to the school, the school is not allowed to use the program based
on copyright law. Since the parent had
to pay to download the material, his or her child is the only one who can use
it on whichever computer they downloaded it onto. For the school to be able to use it, they
would need the permission of the company to download the software onto each of
their computers. Without this
permission, the school is in violation of copyright law.