In some instances, copyright materials can be used without permission depending on certain educational purposes under copyright law; this is known as Fair Use. This is the right to use portions of copyrighted material (without the permission of the copyrighter ) only for educational purposes. This can also be used for purposes of commentary or parody in some cases as well. However, fair use has some rules that are very specific and as long as educators comply with the,, it can prevent unwanted lawsuits. (This is so special because this is NOT the case for some general fair use principles). As teachers, we want to give our students real examples of things that happen in the world we live in today, and since these rules are put into play, we need to be careful that we are not infringing or copying other peoples work. I will give you an example to demonstrate a use of fair use for educational purposes:
A professor copies an article from a periodical that is used for distribution to the class. This is an example of fair use because when you distribute multiple copies for classroom uses, it is fair use. However, if you were to repeat the use of a copyright framework, from term to term, has to require more scrutiny for a more accurate evaluation. So sometimes
Section 107 of the Copyright Act provides the framework that determines whether of not something is being used under fair use, and also identifies those specific types of uses. (These can be criticism, commentary, news reporting, teaching, scholarships as well as research) These laws are set in place, especially regarding any form of copyright, so that it protects certain kinds of original work. The protection of copyright especially fair use gives the owners protection of their creation.
Some people think that fair use is an exception or a carve out of the protection that we have under the first amendment, but this is an expansion of protection for authors, teachers, ect, but it is a fundamental right that we have to use it. Thanks to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the supreme court has ruled that fair use is in fact a "First Amendment Safeguard" However, just like the first amendment, fair use is a safe, broad and flexible term that is subject to change, and it supports the purpose of copyright to "promote the progress of science and the useful arts." One fun interesting statistic, is that experts estimate that industries reliant on the fair use concept, contributed $2.4 trillion to the U.S. economy in 2008-2009 or 17 percent of the US GDP.^1
One example that can be used in the classroom would be a line from a poem written by someone else. Let's say that we took a poem from Sheil Silverstein. Since the teacher used one line of a poem, it is protected under the fair use because the teacher is not using it as their own, they are using it to inspire other students to create their own poems. However, by duplicating that poem and selling it in a school fundraiser is not fair use.
CCIA, Fair Use in the US Economy, http://www.ccianet.org/wp content/uploads/
library/CCIA-FairUseintheUSEconomy-2011.pdf
It's good to know the difference between the two "fair uses." This because as an educator asking for copyrighted permission every time they went to use something in their classroom would get exhausting. So understanding that there are certain things that are allowed to be done are great uses for education purposes.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea there was more than one type of "fair use." However, I do not believe these laws will change what I am doing as an educator. I do not plan to sell any of the information I use in my class and I do not intend to steal peoples work and display it as my own.
ReplyDeleteIn this technological world, I think that teaching students of all ages about fair use is so important. Working in the writing center at Grand Valley, I had to explain copyright and fair use to students on a weekly basis. The younger we can expose students to these rules, the better! Since fair use is a gray area in the copyright world, it needs explicit instruction.
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