"Word on the street" (actually the modern version of the adage "word on the listservs") has it that ISP (Internet service providers) are receiving complaints from copyright holders that schools (as identified by the IP address assigned to the school) are downloading copyright-protected media (movies, audio, images, etc.)
The law does allow for fines to be imposed for instances in which illegal downloading can be proven.
There is a myth among many educators that. because they work in schools and they are not making money, that they may use any media as they wish. Copyright law does allow for fair use of media by educators and others, but the limits are well defined and those limits do not allow for repeated use.
I usually tell people, "if you find a great article in a magazine, you are safe to make copies of it for use in one class once, as long as you don't keep copies and arrange to but copies for the next time you use it." Of course, today, much copyright violation occurs with digital media.
My students create multimedia projects all of the time... we are probably within fair use guidelines if we (for example) get a copy of a song to use as background music, and the project is a class project that is not distributed beyond the walls of the class.
My statements contain "probably" because the laws are actually open to interpretation and digital media are challenging some of the assumptions that were well-established when the laws were written.
One of the best resources for understanding fair use, is the Stanford Copyright and Fair Use Center.
No comments:
Post a Comment