Copyright Laws

When using copyrighted materials, you must always be sure that you are working within the law. It is very easy to confuse and misinterpret circumstances and unknowingly work outside of the law. As an educator using copyrighted materials, the best thing to do is to familiarize yourself with the copyright laws, as well as have a list of reliable resources.

Scenario 1:

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.

Mrs. Urdvardy is “in the clear” until she allows her students to take the copied files home. A side bar in the article, “Copyright fundamentals for teachers who use the new technologies for instruction”(http://www.education-world.com/a_curr/curr280d.shtml) it clearly states that, “Fair use guidelines allow educators to use copyrighted works to create educational multimedia projects for face-to-face student instruction and directed student self-study. The take-home assignment that Mrs. Urdvardy has given her students is obviously not “face-to-face,” nor is it directed student self-study. If Mrs. Urdvardy had given each student only 10 percent or less of the music, then she would not be in violation of the law. But, since she has downloaded the songs in their entirety, and allowed the students to take the work home, she is working outside of the parameters of the law. To reiterate my thoughts, the article, “Copyright and Plagarism” (http://www.fhsu.edu/te/law/copyright.html) states, “A single copy of a sound recording of copyrighted music may be made from sound recordings owned by an educational institution or an individual teacher for the purpose of aural exercises may be retained by the educational institution or individual teacher.”

Scenario 2:

Mrs. Hamer is tutoring for the functional writing test out of a copyrighted series of workbooks from Houghton Mifflin. She has 27 students but only 20 books were purchased for her class. The same material is available at the HM web page. She prints enough pages for her kids each morning for today's class.

After reading Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law, in an article called “Copyright and Plagarism” at http://www.fhsu.edu/te/law/copyright.html, I believe that Mrs. Hamer is obstructing the copyright law. Section 107 "creates a limitation on copyright protection called fair use. It protects socially beneficial borrowings of copyrighted works. It is not permission to use all copyrighted works at will for education." Having said that, this law has been interpreted by the Ad Hoc Committee of Educational Institutions and Organizations on Copyright Law Revision, the Author's League of America, Inc., and the Association of American Publishers, Inc. to mean that teachers can copy works if they fall under the four “fair use” standards. These standards are:

purpose---works that are used for nonprofit educational purpose are more likely to be considered fair use
nature---works that are published, factual, and out of print are more likely to be considered fair use
portion-- small percentages of works are more likely to be considered fair use
market value-- market impact should be negligible. PRINTED MATERIALS

It goes on to say that, “Multiple copies can be made for classroom use if the number of copies do not exceed one copy per student in the class and as long as the copying meets the tests of brevity, spontaneity, and cumulative effect and each copy must include a copyright notice.”

According to the article, “Copyright and Plagarism” brevity should be interpreted as a single chapter from a book, and spontaneity means that there is not enough time for Mrs. Hamer to request permission for use. With all of these facts stated, it is apparent that Mrs. Hamer should merely have had her students share books. While it is much easier and more efficient for the students to have their own books, it is not within the boundaries of the copyright laws. But, the twist is that Mrs. Hamer printed the pages from Houghton Mifflin’s website. Laws for Internet usage are slightly different, but should be used as closely to the printed laws as possible. The Internet laws state that, “Educators can use copyrighted works to create educational multimedia projects for face-to-face student instruction.” So, because Mrs. Hamer did not copy directly from the book, but rather printed the materials from a website, she is not violating the fair use standards as long as she is face-to-face with the students and not printing out more than the students need for that day.

Sources:

“Copyright fundamentals for teachers who use the new technologies for instruction” at: http://www.education-world.com/a_curr/curr280d.shtml

“Copyright and Plagarism” at http://www.fhsu.edu/te/law/copyright.html