Copyright and Fair Use

Today you will be exercising your knowledge about copyright and fair use. You will be working with scenarios to determine how to apply the fair use law.

Definition Review Intellectual Property Copyright Plagiarism Intangible products of a creator such as songs, poems, ideas, etc. Legal protection provided to creators of tangible expressions of intellectual property. Presenting another’s work as your own. Example: Cutting and pasting into a research document without giving credit.

Lawmakers realized that sometimes to advance education, students and teachers need to use products that are copyrighted. To cover these situations they developed the Fair Use Laws. Refer to the Resource Page

Fair Use is a term used to cover the exceptions to copyright law that courts have set forth. To understand Fair Use is to understand when material (after giving credit) can be fairly used without contacting the creator.

Think About It: Why might Fair Use exceptions be granted? How would school and education be different if we didn’t have Fair Use exceptions to copyright? What Do You Need To Know?

Fair Use is supposed to give you the right to enhance your education AND protect the creators and their monetary rights. To violate Fair Use laws is to violate copyright. Violations of copyright can carry some hefty penalties. The Purpose of Fair Use And remember, there is no such thing as “not copyrighted.” When you produce something, you automatically hold the copyright.

The Basics of Fair Use You can use graphics and content for educational purposes in small amounts: 30 seconds of a song, 1 picture from a book, etc. Give credit so that you aren’t guilty of plagiarizing. Remember that work cannot be publicly displayed or put into a situation where it could be distributed or copied. (Examples - website, contest, sell for school funds, etc.)

An Example: Under fair use laws you are allowed to use portions of the material found on the Internet, or from cds, books, etc., in your presentation without getting permission from the author. Let’s say you are doing a multimedia presentation for school… However, if you use this material without giving credit to the creator in a bibliography you are plagiarizing. In other words - use it, but cite your source.

Is this allowed under Fair Use? Let’s say you do give credit for the music and photos you use in the bibliography – you aren’t guilty of plagiarizing. You’ve correctly followed fair use and your project gets an A+. Your teacher wants to showcase your work on the school website.

Unfortunately, No! You can’t display work in a public forum without permission from the original creators. (Not you as the creator – those people you cited.) To present the project you are allowed to use music and pictures for an educational purpose – as soon as you go public with it, such as on the Internet, it is no longer considered fair use. Now evaluate the scenarios on the Activity pages and discuss.

Based on the scenarios, discuss the following: What are some valid fair use exceptions? What were some scenarios where fair use did not apply? What should you do if Fair Use does not apply and you want to use the work?

Divide into groups to brainstorm some rules to serve as reminders of copyright law and fair use exceptions. When you’re done, present your rules to the class and discuss and/or Post in a public place such as the school library or media center. Project

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