A guide to copyright, copyright infringement and fair use for educators & educational uses

What is Copyright?

Copyright is a legal device that provides the author of a work (literary, artistic, educational, or musical) with the right to control how the work is used.

To be protected by copyright, the content must be fixed, original and with a minimum of creativity. It can be published or unpublished.

In some countries creators don’t need to register the work to be protected. Typically each country has an office that provides information about the local copyrights reserved.

Is it possible to do a fair use without permission?

Fair use “promotes freedom of expression by permitting the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances” (United States Copyright Office, 2017c). There are no set guidelines that are universally accepted.

4 standards for determination of the fair use

The legal standard for deciding what constitutes fair use of a copyrighted work involves examining and balancing the effects of four standards:

Short Printed material

Educators can provide a copy per student for classroom use, but they should do a copyright notice on the first page of the material copied. They need to keep in mind that copying the works for subsequent semesters requires copyright permission.

Can be accepted:
- a single Chapter from a book or a single article from a journal issue or newspaper
- a short story, essay or poem from an individual work
- 1 chart, graph, diagram, picture, drawing or cartoon per book, journal or newspaper
- 2 pages of picture book, maximum

Archive use printed material

For archiving purposes, once again a copyright notice should be provided on the first page of the copied material.

Educators can make up to three copies for replacing a copy that is damaged, deteriorating, lost or stolen.

Can be accepted:

-An entire work

-Portions of a work

-A work in which the existing format has become obsolete

Illustrations & Photographs

Educators can use:

-not more than five images from a single artist or photographer

-From a collection, not more than 15 or 10 percent

Specifically can be used:

-the search engine on the official Creative Commons website: https://search.creativecommons.org/

-6 sites for free images:

https://unsplash.com/

https://pixabay.com/

https://www.pexels.com/

https://www.photosforclass.com/

https://openclipart.org/

https://www.pics4learning.com/

Google if the usage rights are “free to use or share”

Videos for educational viewing

Educators can:

-Use Videotapes, DVD’s, Laserdiscs (legitimately acquired) and videos not downloaded from sites during the classroom

-Make copies for archival purposes or to replace lost, damage or stolen copies if replacements are unavailable at a fair price or in a viable format

Videos for integration into multimedia or video projects

Some time ago it was acceptable that students used portions of lawfully acquired copyright works in their academic multimedia, defined as 10 percent or three minutes. Nowadays this is no longer applicable as explained in this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PvjRIkwIl8&list=PLpjK416fmKwRnRbv72ksHRYEknNSaAFkd

Many media sites provide a Creative Commons search filter, including YouTube, Flickr, and CC Search.

To use them is just necessary follow the terms of the license.

Music for integration into multimedia or video projects

Integrate music can originate some infringements.
The best way to avoid it is:
- to request copyright permission
- to purchase a royalty free music library

For educational use the royalty free music library should allow:
• Synchronization with film and video
• Broadcast and podcast rights
• Rights to duplicate and sell videos within the educational environment
• Continued use for student portfolios with the projects they developed when studying

Computer Software

Guidelines for Schools

- Software is covered by copyright and cannot be modified;
- One archival copy of the software can be made but only used if the original fails or it is destroyed;
- It may be installed on a multiple machines and distributed to users via a network.
- Number of simultaneous users must not exceed the numbers of licenses.

Internet

Nowadays the internet is the easiest way to access information.

It is probably the most difficult content to describe “fair use”.

Important to keep in mind:

-works posted on other sites might not have been posted by the copyright owner or with the copyright owner's permission

-always get permission to use a copyrighted online work from the owner of the work

-Deep-linking (linking to the interior pages without accessing the home page) can raise allegations of trespassing and other property-related offenses.

Television

Educators can:
- use broadcasts or tapes made from broadcast for instruction;
- ask permission to use Cable channel;
- show a program if not modified.

Important to keep in mind:

• Schools are allowed to retain broadcast tapes.

• the tape is retained by the educational institution for no longer that 45 days after the date of the recording.

• the tape is used only once with each class during the first ten consecutive school days of the 45-day retention period.

•the tape is used from the 10th to the 45th day of the retention period for teacher-evaluation purposes only.