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K-12 COPYRIGHT LAWS: PRIMER FOR TEACHERS

COPYRIGHT LAWS:
WHAT IS LEGAL IN THE SCHOOL CLASSROOM - DO'S AND DON'TS

Definition of Copyright:
"The legal right granted to an author, a composer, a playwright, a publisher, or a distributor to exclusive publication, production, sale, or distribution of a literary, musical, dramatic, or artistic work.

You Have Permission to cite this website the Educational CyberPlayGround as your source.  ( ISTC 301/501 Resources )

 


COPYRIGHT GUIDELINES


What can the kids put up online?

What is legal in the classroom?
Many schools strictly prohibit copying from workbooks. Some of these have been revised recently, and they still use the 1976 act for guidance. Assume the guidelines are designed to prevent the institutions from getting sued.

Copyright Counts
Even if administrators, teachers, librarians and parents who make copies think it is correct because they are doing it 'for the kids' are breaking the law.

Research
It is very difficult to come up with a new idea. Make sure your students learn how to use the APA Style of Citation.

Copying workbook pages

Copying workbook pages is breaking copyright UNLESS you read copyright statements which permit you to make legal copies up to the number of students in a classroom.

READ the copyright information published in the book
Sometimes copying workbook pages is allowed. That is why they are made and sold at very cheap rates to be "consumed". If permission to copy for classroom use is not given, then don't assume it is OK to make multiple copies... it is NOT.

You must contact the publisher and ask for permission to copy.
Get it in writing and keep it. Never "trim" copyright information off of pages on which duplication rights have been given. This can be perceived as you taking credit for the work.

School districts are NOT allowed to "cut and paste" curriculum guides
with copies from teacher resource books that say "not to be distributed to a whole district -- for single class use only". Districts are not allowed to then put a disclaimer in the front of the "booklet" saying something about the pages being for "ideas" only and not meant for each teacher to copy.

Breaking copyright law and being dishonest happens in every state.
Anything that teaches children that it is OK to break even little laws, as long as you don't get caught -- is wrong.

Do NOT use any literary interpretation of copyright law that you read on any website unless it is DATED AT LEAST in the past last 12 months, even this one!

You may find a long list of exclusions to exclusive use rights now included in the law. http://www.loc.gov/copyright/title17/92chap1.html

 

MUSIC / ARTS

First of all . . .What are your Fair Use Rights?

Music / Arts copyright laws for classroom use.

MUSIC, VIDEO and COPYRIGHT LAW
How can K-12 legally use music for the video project, class project, multimedia presentation, school yearbook on the CD, class website or cable television program, produced at the school?

Copyright Scavanger Hunt
As a student, what can you use copyrighted music for in an educational setting?
How much of a copyrighted song can you use in a student project?
As a teacher, how much of a movie (motion media) can you legally use?

Types of media and permissible amounts

WHO OWNS IT? the teacher or employer.

How some Teachers Feel About Fair Use and Intellectual Property
Protecting Intellectual Capital While Nurturing Intellectual Capacity

KANSAS SUPREME COURT TO RULE ON OWNERSHIP OF FACULTY WORK 7/2005 The Kansas Supreme Court will evaluate an appellate court decision giving public institutions in Kansas the right to claim ownership of any faculty work, including books, with no negotiation on terms required. The lower court treated faculty work as "work for hire" under federal copyright law, classifying scholarly work as within the scope of employment of a faculty member. The current policy, designed in 1998, allows faculty to keep their book rights and has a revenue-sharing model for technology copyrights. Should the higher court decide in favor of the board, the policy could be changed at will. The case pits the Kansas Board of Regents against the Kansas National Education Association. http://insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/08/kansas

WHAT teacher created material belongs to a teacher when they leave their position?

Copyright & K-12: Who Pays in the Network Era?

 

PUT UP YOUR WEBSITE SOMEWHERE FOR FREE When publishing to third party websites that are free you will need to realize who owns what you have put up there. YOU? or the Website? That is all about who owns the copyright of your work. Should you use Yahoo for putting up your online course? Read their Terms of Use which appeare to grant Yahoo all rights to the material in perpetuity, and many other places are the same way. Do you care about what your copyright or people stealing and commercially exploiting your work? If you want to make your work publically available do you also want to give all rights to the material to someone else? One consequence of giving up all rights can be losing the right to use your own work. Read the terms of use and privacy statements and teach your students to do the same.

Copyright Laws, General Information Explained:

 

Work-for-Hire Agreements

The work-for-hire doctrine transfers copyright in the work from the creator to the hiring party. This happens by operation of law when an employee creates a work as part of his/her employment duties. No written document is needed. But in any other situation, copyright can only transfer from the creator of a work if that person signs an "assignment" or "work for hire agreement."
A work-for-hire agreement must be signed by both parties. It must describe the work specifically and fall into one of the following categories:

The terms "agree," "contract," and "writing," are interpreted broadly. A contract may be a check with the words, "endorsement constitutes payment in full for services rendered on a work-for-hire basis" scrawled on the back. An "agreement" may be the artist cashing such a check. A writing may be one that took place after the work was created but prior to payment. The court held that although a work-for-hire relationship must be established prior to the creation of the work, the writing itself need not be.
Beyond the work-for-hire situation, you can transfer your rights in a copyright by agreeing to do so. The transfer must be in writing and signed by you, except for nonexclusive licenses, which can be oral. *Tthe sale of a tangible object does not constitute the transfer of the copyright, and the transfer of the copyright does not constitute sale of the tangible object. There must be an agreement to transfer both.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS IPR
Before you can publish OR duplicate something, YOU'LL need to figure out if you own it first.

- What Is Intellectual Property?
Intellectual property is an area of law designed to encourage creativity and fair competition in the marketplace. It protects the rights of individuals and businesses who have transformed their ideas into property by granting rights to the owners of those properties. It is an intangible asset that must be expressed in some discernable way to be protected. It can be bought, sold, licensed, exchanged or gratuitously given away.
- What is a Copyright?
A copyright applies to the expression of an idea, whether published or not. Once an original work is created and fixed, copyright exists. Examples include: musical compositions (words and/or music), audio and video recordings, motion pictures, TV programs, computer programs, databases and other literary, dramatic, musical, or artistic works. Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed.
- What determines if I own the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) for the content of my project?
Unless you or your organization created all of the program material yourself, someone probably owns the copyright. We check your disc for copyrighted material including music tracks, software, shareware, freeware, motion picture and television programs. Check our web site for links to research who owns specific copyrights. - - - What is a Copyright License?
A license is an agreement between the IPR owner and the user that specifies how the copyrighted material can be used. It should include how many copies can be made and how it is to be distributed.
- How do I describe the "Type of Content"?
ROM can be described as any of the following:
Game, Application, Database, Operating System, Multimedia, Software Compilation, Shareware, Freeware, MP3 or Enhanced CD. Audio can be described as, Spoken Word, Broadcast Program, Karaoke/CD+G, Soundtrack, Live Performance, Single Artist/Band, or Compilation. Music should indicate the style, such as Rock, Rap, Folk, Country, Latin, etc.
- What if my program is a compilation of either software and/or music?
Attach a list of all software, shareware, or freeware programs, all musical tracks and/or video clips and indicate for each one if you own the IPR or license it. Attach the license agreements for each individual item.

What is a "Letter of Indemnity"?

This is a letter claiming you assume all responsibility for the content material. This cannot be accepted as a substitute for a licensing agreement.

Who should sign the IPR form?

The form should be signed by an officer of the organization or the individual soliciting the replication and not by a broker or intermediary.

 

COPYRIGHT ART

 

Securing the rights to use a picture of a painting - do a search for ARS (Artists Rights Society), CISAC, and others. If you can determine where image is, physically (a museum?) you  could contact their rights & permissions department - often, when an image is reproduced, one of the stipulations is to identify the owner of the work. If you've got an art museum near you, give them a call and ask how to contact these groups. The registrar's office should know.

ILLEGAL ART
WILLFUL INFRINGEMENT (2003, 58 min.), Produced by Jed Horovitz, Directed by Greg Hittelman. legal scholars, artists, DJ¹s, Star Wars fans, teachers and many more tell an "extraordinary" tale about how ownership of ideas has come into conflict with free expression. You can go now to www.willfulinfringement.com to see free clips, buy the DVD, or stream the whole movie for a donation.

VARA - Visual Artists Rights Act The Statute 17 USC section 106A
Law protecting certain rights of the artist's works. A “work of visual art” is--

 

VIDEO

 

VIDEO USE IN THE CLASSROOM

QUESTION:
 What about STREAMING VIDEO OR MUSIC on the schools web site? It is video and audio. Not the whole play (Guys and Dolls) but pieces of the play?

ANSWER: Ahh, so it's Guys and Dolls. My daughter was just in Bye Bye Birdie at Abington JHS, and we had the same problem. During the performances, the school was very strict about not allowing video cameras into the theatre. The reason is that the Broadway licensing companies that provide these musicals for use with schools are VERY STRICT about what may be done with their shows. They won't even let you change a line of their script without written permission, and the schools that license these shows have to sign a contract which contains all of these stipulations. Make no mistake about it -- these companies OWN their shows, and they have the right to make such stipulations.
And one of the stipulations is typically that no videotaping is permitted -- unless the school pays a significant additional fee. The real reason for the stipulation is that when the licensing company allows videotaping, they also allow the school to sell copies of the videotape as a fundraising activity, and of course the licensing company wants their share of that. Because of the excess cost and because a lot of schools don't really know how to turn videotaping into fundraising, they opt for the less expensive route and disallow the taping.
So technically, you should not have videotaped the show. But where the rubber meets the road in copyright law is always with litigation. It's HIGHLY UNLIKELY that the Broadway licensing company will sue you because you taped the show -- I'm not a lawyer, but at least three good reasons spring to mind: 1) they'd have a very tough time proving you benefited financially or caused any harm to them by taping it, 2) it's reasonable to argue that videotaping your own daughter is fair use of copyrighted information, and 3) you don't have enough money to make it worth their while to sue.
A school, on the other hand, has a problem, because if they were to either A) allow taping or B) to broadcast a video in any medium (including a website, BTW), they could be held in breach of contract and could easily be found liable. And since schools, being large institutions, DO have money, it is also much more likely the licensor would sue in this case. In addition, since such a lawsuit would most certainly make the papers, there is the possibility of political embarrassment as well since most school board members are elected officials. And this would also put pressure on the school administrators to do what is legally correct, since it is highly likely if such a lawsuit were to occur, the school administrators responsible would be fired.
So, the bottom line is that if you want this video to go out on a website somewhere, you'd better not have the school's name on it anywhere, because they would most certainly ask you to take it down if they found out about it. There's too much at stake for them.

QUESTION: I have purchased or rented a pre-recorded video program from a home video outlet. Can I use this in my classroom?

ANSWER: Under certain conditions, purchased or rented pre-recorded video programs may be used in the classroom.
Section 110 (1) of the copyright law enables teachers to use (perform) such a video without a public performance license (which is normally required whenever a video is shown outside the of the home). The conditions which must be satisfied are:
1) the use must take place in a non-profit educational institution,
2) the use must occur in a classroom or similar place devoted to instruction,
3) the use must be part of a regularly scheduled course (thus ruling out extra-curricular or recreational use),
4) the use must be exclusively by the instructor and the students in the classroom, in the course of face-to-face teaching activities.

Copyright law is governed by
The United States Code

United States Code

Title 17 of the US Code
This document details the types of works that can be copyrighted, the rights the copyright holder has, situations where copies may be made without the holder's permission as well as the penalties for copyright infringement.
Section 106 lists the rights the copyright holder has:
" ...the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending"
Sections 501 and 506 deal specifically with copyright infringement and penalties:
" Anyone who violates any of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner as provided by sections 106 through 118 or of the author as provided in section 106A(a)...is an infringer of the copyright or right of the author, as the case may be"
" Any person who infringes a copyright willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain shall be punished as provided in section 2319 of title 18."
" When any person is convicted of any violation of subsection (a), the court in its judgment of conviction shall, in addition to the penalty therein prescribed, order the forfeiture and destruction or other disposition of all infringing copies or phonorecords and all implements, devices, or equipment used in the manufacture of such infringing copies or phonorecords."
" Any person who, with fraudulent intent, removes or alters any notice of copyright appearing on a copy of a copyrighted work shall be fined not more than $2,500."
Title 18, Section 2319
details the punishment for copyright infringement:
" Whoever violates section 506(a) (relating to criminal offenses) of title 17 shall be punished...and such penalties shall be in addition to any other provisions of title 17 or any other law."
" Any person who commits an offense under subsection (a) of this section shall be imprisoned not more than 5 years, or fined in the amount set forth in this title, or both, if the offense consists of the reproduction or distribution, during any 180-day period, of at least 10 copies or phonorecords, of 1 or more copyrighted works, with a retail value of more than $2,500; shall be imprisoned not more than 10 years, or fined in the amount set forth in this title, or both, if the offense is a second or subsequent offense under paragraph (1); and shall be imprisoned not more than 1 year, or fined in the amount set forth in this title, or both, in any other case."

FAIR USE

 

WHAT ARE MY FAIR USE RIGHTS?

What is Fair Use?

Copyright and Fair Use Guidelines for Teachers Chart

Types of media and permissable amounts

Copyright and Fair Use in the Classroom, on the Internet, and the World Wide Web

Fair Use Guidelines for Educational Multimedia and Related Documents and Links

Fair Use Copyright Quiz and Answers by Hall Davidson

Educator's Quiz  re: Copyright and Fair Use
Part I: Computers and Software
Part II: The Internet
Part III: Video
Part IV: Multimedia
Answers

Fair Use Guidelines For Multiple copies

No more than...

"Consumable works" shall not be copied, such as:

The same item will not be reproduced from term to term.

Statute is 17 U.S.C. Section 107 says:
Making multiple copies for classroom use is SPECIFICALLY LISTED as an acceptable fair use.

"Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include-

Apparently this fair use doctrine is simply a reason to have broken copyright law. By invoking that, you are admitting that you knew you were breaking copyright, but had an acceptable reason. Workbooks are "comsumable" items and therefore excluded from permitted multiple copying. (Unless the publisher themselves decides to give permission - but you can't assume it.)
And the number and times one can make multiple copies from other books is sharply limited. You can't, for instance,make copies of several chapters from the same book, or use multiple copies of the same chapter repeatedly in different terms.
From the book Getting Permission by Richard Stim: "Teachers may not photocopy workbooks, texts, standardized tests or other materials that were created for educational use. The guidelines were not intended to allow teachers to usurp the profits of educational publishers. In other words, educational publishers do not consider it a fair use if the copying provides replacements or substitutes for the purchase of books, reprints, periodicals, tests, workbooks, anthologies, compilations or collective works.

copyright classroom, copyright teaching material, educational copyright law, fair use

 

TEACHER, ADMINISTRATOR RESOURCES FOR COPYRIGHT LAWS

COPYLEFT - COPYRIGHT
GET INDEPTH INFORMATION ON THIS TOPIC - READ AND UNDERSTAND THE ISSUES INVOLVED.

K-12 Web Publishing Policies

Classroom Copyright Chart

Copying Guidelines

Educational CyberPlayGround Permission Request Form

Educational CyberPlayGround's CopyRight

Rights Granted Under Copyright Law

Standard Permission Request Form for Publishers

Book and Online Publishers Listed in alphabetical order by name.

Journals by Title Listed in alphabetical order by title

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