Copyright and Fair Use

In terms of coping with copyright issues, teachers fall into three categories according to the Media Ed Lab at Temple University: "See no evil", "Close the door", "Hyper-comply". I am definitely the hyper-comply type, always paranoid that I'm using something I shouldn't or in a way that's against some sort of law. Which one are you?

It is ironic that when you think Copyright, the first things that come into mind are… “prohibited, infringement, illegal, fines, stay away from”… when in theory the purpose of copyright according to the US Constitution is “to promote creativity, innovation and the spread of knowledge.”

Copyright law is actually very vague and most of the warnings/ threats that are attached to copyrighted materials (eg. fines, jail time, hell, etc.) are unwarranted and not backed up by the law. The basic principles behind copyright are:

• All tangible creative works are protected by copyright right when they are created.
• Citing or quoting the source doesn’t necessarily mean you are in the clear when using copyrighted material.
• When in doubt, ask for permission to use.

I set off to write a nice, neat, prescriptive post with guidelines to follow concerning use of copyrighted material by teachers and students. However, after reading some of the literature out there, I found that the guidelines available are by no means black and white. Education World has a great series on The Educator's Guide to Copyright and Fair Use, but I found it somewhat stressful to read the information because it seems so specific (only use 1 chapter from a book, 10% from a short essay, 250 words of a short poem, newspaper excerpts of 1000 words...) After listening to a webinar recording on Copyright and Creative Commons and exploring some of the resources on Fair Use made available by the Media Ed Lab at Temple, I was a bit more enlightened.

I see the Fair Use Doctrine as a type of amnesty clause for using copyrighted materials, Fair Use principles applied to media literacy education are...

Teachers can:
1.Make copies of newspaper articles, TV shows and other copyrighted works, use them and keep them for educational purposes.
2. Create curriculum resources which include copyrighted materials.
3. Share, sell and distribute curriculum resources they have created which include the copyrighted materials.

Students can:
4. Use copyrighted works in creating new material.
5. Distribute their works digitally if they meet the transformativeness standard.

That's the theory anyway, the fine print/ factors used by judges when determining whether a copyright infringement is protected under Fair Use are:

• purpose and character of your use (eg. personal use more likely to be "forgiven" than commercial)
  
• nature of the copyrighted work (eg. use of factual vs creative, published and out of print works more likely to be considered fair use)
  
• the amount and substaintability of the portion taken (eg. was more taken than was actually needed?)
  
• the effect on the use upon the potential market (eg. does the new material take away from the potential market of the original work?)
  

After reviewing the literature, the main conclusive/ useful statement I have come accross regarding use of copyrighted materials in education is that they key to Fair Use is TRANSFORMATIVENESS (ie. changing the nature of the copyrighted work from what it was originally created for, creating something new from the original work or adding value to it).

Select resources pertaining to copyright, fair use and teaching (worth checking out):

• Unlocking Copyright Confusion wiki- From the Media Ed Lab at Temple University, this collaborative wiki aims to end "copyright confusion" and includes information for teachers, resources for reasoning fair use, discussion forums on the topic, a Q&A space, best practices, case studies...
  
• http://copyrightfriendly.wikispaces.com- A very useful resource, includes a HUGE collection of sites from which to obtain copyright "friendly" media.
• Great chart detailing Fair Use Guidelines for Teachers: What you CAN do, and the fine print...
• To teach students about Copyright issues, you can find lesson plans and materials for discussion here, and copyrightconfusion.wikispaces.com has links to songs and videos to learn about these issues.

A different take on copyright than what we are used to...
"Copyright, What is Copyright?" Musical Video