COPYRIGHT Respect it

Does this look familiar to you? "Federal law provides severe civil and criminal penalties for the unauthorized reproduction, distribution, or exhibition of copyrighted materials. Criminal copyright infringement is investigated by the FBI. " Have you even wondered what exactly those “severe and criminal penalties” are?

Penalties come in two forms: civil and criminal. CIVIL PENALTIES The civil penalties for copyright infringement not registered with the Library of Congress include actual losses sustained by the copyright owner as the result of the infringement. When it comes to a registered copyright filed with the Library of Congress, the copyright owner can also obtain triple damages above and beyond actual damages, together with attorney fees in a copyright infringement case. CIMINAL PENALTIES The possible criminal penalty for copyright infringement is significant. If you are convicted of criminal copyright infringement you face a possible maximum penalty of up to five years in prison and up to a $250,000 monetary fine.

What about “fair use?” Fair use is a legal exception to the charge of infringement. It allows the use of copyrighted material without permission for purposes of education, commentary, critique, parody, and news reporting. The four primary factors you need to consider in order to determine "fair use" are... the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; the nature of the copyrighted work; the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Multimedia in the Classroom In 1996, fair use guidelines for the production and use of multimedia in educational settings were established and include the following guidelines: When creating multimedia programs, students and teachers may legally use the following copyrighted materials: Text: up to 10% or 1000 words, whichever is less Audio: up to 10%, but not more than 30 seconds—provided the excerpt does not comprise a part of the whole that would constitute a performable unit such as a section, movement, or aria.

Multimedia in the classroom cont…. Images: not more than 5 images by the same artist or photographer and up to 10%, but not more than 15 images from a single collection. Video: up to 10% or 3 minutes, whichever is less

Getting permission Permission can be sought from copyright owners, sometimes for a fee. It is best to contact the distributor or publisher of the material, not the creator. Contact information and addresses are generally found on the Internet. Fees can be negotiated, and keep copies of all correspondence between you and the distributor.

Careful! When posting to a website, the creator should be careful not to copy the work of others, and this includes not only text but images as well. It is important for all of us to be good cyber citizens, and teachers should lead by example.