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 became great kids. What are the copyright implications?

According to section 4 of the Fair Use Copyright Act, the teacher is not violating any copyright laws by having her students use graphics from the net, to make power point presentations. Section 4 details portion limitations of copyright. Because the teacher is teaching the students to make power point presentations, any information that they copy from the Internet comes under the portion limitations section. Students can incorporate Internet information or graphics as long as they are creating an educational multimedia project specifically for a class. The copyright laws are violated if the students take the multimedia project and use it for profit.

Scenario # 2

Mr. Hamer is tutoring for the functional writing test out of a copyrighted series of workbooks 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. He prints enough pages for her kids each morning for today’s class

Mr. Hamer is violating copyright laws when he copies the material from the HM web page if he does not have permission to do so. According to copyright laws it is okay to copy a single chapter or graphic from a book but not unlimited pages. The copyright law does not allow users to make multiple copies as a substitute for buying books. Unfortunately we are all at one point in time in this position. Not enough money to buy books needed for all our students.

Here the copyright laws are meant to protect the author or publisher of the works. If Mr. Hamer is copying the information then the publishers are not reaping the benefits of publishing the books. They are loosing money every time Mr. Hamer copies a paper. Copyright laws are meant to protect lost earnings to authors and publishers.