Technology+Report


 * Fair Use Guidelines in Education **

We are in a media rich environment in education today. Teachers are told that they should accommodate many different types of learning styles and multimedia is one of the best practices for accomplishing that goal. The modern classroom is full of audio presentations to podcasts. Teachers address visual learners through video, television and cinematic clips. With all of this new media at the teachers disposal, districts need to have a fundamental understanding of "fair use" of media in the educational environment. School districts must make their faculty aware of "fair use" guidelines in order to avoid potentially costly lawsuits for copyright infringement. Even lawsuits that are successfully defended can be expensive and distracting. First, teachers must be educated about "fair use" guidelines for using multimedia as a teaching tool in the classroom. Educators are granted quite a bit of leeway in using multimedia with their students. Educational institutions, such as K-12 schools, universities, and other non-profit educational institutions, may use media in the classroom for "educational purposes" but may not reproduce the media for archiving. "Educational purposes" is defined as " noncommercial instruction or curriculum-based teaching by educators to students at nonprofit educational institutions, planned noncommercial study or investigation directed toward making a contribution to a field of knowledge, or presentation of research findings at noncommercial peer conferences, workshops, or seminars." (http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter7/7-b.html) These instances apply to most all K-12 institutions and teachers in education. " Use of film and video is permitted in an educational institution so long as all of the following conditions are met: 1. The film must be shown as part of the instructional program. 2. The film must be shown by students, instructors, or guest lecturers, and can only be shown to students and educators. 3. The film must be shown either in a classroom or other school location devoted to instruction. 4. The film must be shown either in a face ‐ to ‐ face setting or where students and teacher(s) are in the same building or general area. 5. The film shown must be a legitimate copy, with the copyright notice" (http://www.xavier.edu/library/help/copyright_video.pdf) Certainly the easiest way to be certain that use of the media is allowable is to obtain permission from the owner of the work. If that is impracticable in some way, it is best not to use the media in the classroom.

<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Secondly, teachers must also make students aware of copyright and "fair use" guidelines while producing their own work and completing assignments. Students must be aware that just because something is available on the internet, it is not free to use. The internet is not "public domain" where students can take images, videos, or audio files freely to use however they like. Simple guidelines such as: "educational uses in the course for which they were created, portfolios as examples of their academic work, and such personal uses as job and graduate school interviews" ( []) are good examples of properly using multimedia from a copyrighted source. For students, just like teachers, if there is a question, the best idea is to ask for owner for permission to use their work.

//<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Sources: // Stim, R. (n.d.). Stanford Copyright & Fair Use - Educational Uses of Non-coursepack Materials. //Stanford Copyright & Fair Use Center//. Retrieved October 18, 2011, from http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter7/7-b.html

Education World: The Educator's Guide to Copyright and Fair Use. (n.d.). //Education World: The Educator's Best Friend//. Retrieved October 19, 2011, from []

Xavier University: Content Management: Copyright Resources. (n.d.). //Xavier University - Cincinnati, Ohio//. Retrieved October 19, 2011, from http://www.xavier.edu/cm/copyright/index