Copyright Law in Education Amber Glivens

Introduction  Let’s Be Honest: All teachers love to beg, borrow, or steal great ideas and lessons!  Educators collaborate and share great ideas to help our students.  We need to know our rights involving copyright law and fair use as educators and for our students.

What is Copyright Infringement?  Copyright infringement is when a person violates any of a copyright owner’s exclusive rights granted by the federal Copyright Act.

Did You Know? Penalties For Copyright Infringement  Infringer pays the actual dollar amount of damages and profits.  The law provides a range from $200 to $150,000 for each work infringed.  Infringer pays for all attorneys fees and court costs.  The court can issue an injunction to stop the infringing acts.  The court can impound the illegal works.  The infringer can go to jail.

What is Fair Use?  Any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and “transformative” purpose, such as to comment upon, criticize, or parody a copyrighted work.  Fair use can be used to argue against a copyright infringement case because such uses can be done without permission from the copyright owner.

Deciding Fair Use  When deciding what is fair use, educators should consider 4 factors:  the purpose and character of your use  the nature of the copyrighted work  the amount and substantiality of the portion taken, and  the effect of the use upon the potential market  The more factors that can be applied, the more likely it is fair use.  Be cautious with only 1 or 2 factors

Fair Uses In The Classroom  Presentations, demonstrations and productions for instruction purposes and kept up to 2 years.  Be sure to include on the opening screen of presentations and on any printed materials that the presentation has been prepared under fair use exemption of the U.S. Copyright Law and are restricted from further use.  Use up to 10% on most multimedia and text  Students may use parts of copyrighted works with citations  Teachers may show DVDs and movies privately but not publicly unless a performance public license is obtained

Conclusion  I hope you learned about copyright infringement and fair use.  If we want our students to not copy copyrighted work, we need to know our rights as educators and do the same.

References    es.html es.html  factors / factors /