Copyright and Fair Use

Copyright and Fair Use : 

Copyright and Fair Use A teacher’s guide for success

What does copyright mean? : 

What does copyright mean? Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U. S. Code) to the authors of “original works of authorship,” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. Copyright protects the particular way an author has expressed himself. It does not extend to any ideas, systems, or factual information conveyed in the work. It is illegal for anyone to violate any of the rights provided by the copyright law to the owner of copyright. These rights, however, are not unlimited in scope. Sections 107 through 121 of the 1976 Copyright Act establish limitations on these rights. One major limitation is the doctrine of “fair use.”

A Fair(y) Use Tale : 

A Fair(y) Use Tale Please view the movie A Fair(y) Use Tale to learn a little about fair use and see an example of how to use copyrighted material fairly. A Fair(y) Use Tale

A Guide to Fair Use : 

A Guide to Fair Use Generally, fair use is any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and "transformative" purpose such as to comment upon, criticize or parody a copyrighted work. Such uses can be done without permission from the copyright owner. The determination of whether a use of a copyrighted work is within fair use depends upon making a reasoned and balanced application of the four fair use factors set forth in Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; the nature of the copyrighted work; the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

A Guide to Fair Use : 

A Guide to Fair Use All four factors should be evaluated in each case, and no one factor will determine the outcome. Each of the factors is subject to interpretation as courts work to apply the law.

Beware! : 

Beware! There is a “gray area” in which fair use may or may not apply. There is never a guarantee that your use will qualify as a fair use. When interpreting the fair use doctrine is often difficult to separate the lawful from the unlawful. Here are two types of situations are especially likely to cause legal problems: * Your work causes the owner of the original work to lose money. * The copyright owner is offended by your use.

Is it Fair Use?? : 

Is it Fair Use?? Your Task: Divide into partners and read each court case, decide whether it is considered fair use or not. An author copied more than half of an unpublished manuscript to prove that someone was involved in the overthrow of the Iranian government. Fair use or not? A biographer of Richard Wright quoted from six unpublished letters and ten unpublished journal entries by Wright. Fair use or not? Entire publications of the Church of Scientology were posted on the Internet by several individuals without Church permission. Fair use or not? The Washington Post used three brief quotations from Church of Scientology texts posted on the Internet (see previous case). Fair use or not?

Is it Fair Use? : 

Is it Fair Use? A woman was sued for copyright infringement for downloading 30 songs using peer-to-peer file sharing software. She argued that her activity was a fair use because she was downloading the songs to determine if she wanted to later buy them. Fair use or not? A person running for political office used 15 seconds of his opponent's campaign song in a political ad. Fair use or not? Comedians on the late-night television show "Saturday Night Live" parodied the song "I Love New York" using the words "I Love Sodom." Only the words "I Love" and four musical notes were taken from the original work. Fair use or not? An author mimicked the style of a Dr. Seuss book while re-telling the facts of the O.J. Simpson murder trial in The Cat NOT in the Hat! A Parody by Dr. Juice. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals determined that the book was a satire, not a parody, because the book did not poke fun at or ridicule Dr. Seuss. Instead, it merely used the Dr. Seuss characters and style to tell the story of the murder. Fair use or not?

Check your answers! : 

Check your answers! Now you will check your answers to see how many you have correct. Thiswill help indicate if you need to develop a further understanding of fair use and shows you how each court case is handled individually, based on all four of the factors we discussed earlier.

Answers : 

Answers An author copied more than half of an unpublished manuscript to prove that someone was involved in the overthrow of the Iranian government. Fair use or not? Not a fair use! A substantial portion was taken (half of the work) and the work had not yet been published. (Love v. Kwitny, 772 F. Supp. 1367 (S.D. N.Y. 1989).) A biographer of Richard Wright quoted from six unpublished letters and ten unpublished journal entries by Wright. Fair use or not? Fair use! No more than 1% of Wright's unpublished letters were copied and the purpose was informational. (Wright v. Warner Books, Inc., 953 F.2d 731 (2d Cir. 1991).)

Answers : 

Answers Entire publications of the Church of Scientology were posted on the Internet by several individuals without Church permission. Fair use or not? Not a fair use! Fair use is intended to permit the borrowing of portions of a work, not complete works. (Religious Technology Center v. Lerma, 40 U.S.P.Q. 2d 1569 (E.D. Va. 1996).) 4. The Washington Post used three brief quotations from Church of Scientology texts posted on the Internet (see previous case). Fair use or not? Fair use! Only a small portion of the work was excerpted and the purpose was for news commentary. ( Religious Technology Center v. Pagliarina, 908 F. Supp 1353 (E.D. Va. 1995).)

Answers : 

Answers 5. A woman was sued for copyright infringement for downloading 30 songs using peer-to-peer file sharing software. She argued that her activity was a fair use because she was downloading the songs to determine if she wanted to later buy them. Fair use or not? Not a fair use! Since numerous sites, such as iTunes permit listeners to sample and examine portions of songs without downloading. the court rejected this "sampling" defense. BMG Music v. Gonzalez, 430 F.3d 888 (7th Cir. 2005). A person running for political office used 15 seconds of his opponent's campaign song in a political ad. Fair use or not? Fair use! A small portion of the song was used and the purpose was for purposes of political debate. (Keep Thomson Governor Comm. v. Citizens for Gallen Comm., 457 F. Supp. 957 (D. N.H. 1978).)

Answers : 

Answers Comedians on the late-night television show "Saturday Night Live" parodied the song "I Love New York" using the words "I Love Sodom." Only the words "I Love" and four musical notes were taken from the original work. Fair use or not? Fair use! The "Saturday Night Live" version of the jingle did not compete with or detract from the original song. (Elsmere Music, Inc. v. National Broadcasting Co., 482 F. Supp. 741 (S.D. N.Y.), aff'd 632 F.2d 252 (2d Cir. 1980).) An author mimicked the style of a Dr. Seuss book while re-telling the facts of the O.J. Simpson murder trial in The Cat NOT in the Hat! A Parody by Dr. Juice. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals determined that the book was a satire, not a parody, because the book did not poke fun at or ridicule Dr. Seuss. Instead, it merely used the Dr. Seuss characters and style to tell the story of the murder. Fair use or not? Not fair use! The author's work was non-transformative and commercial. (Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P. v. Penguin Books USA, Inc., 109 F.3d 1394 (9th Cir. 1997).) * All court cases were retrieved from from http://fairuse.stanford.edu

How did you do? : 

How did you do? Hopefully, after this exercise, you have a better understanding of fair use. These examples show that each case is handled individually and all four factors need to be considered. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; the nature of the copyrighted work; the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Additional Resources : 

Additional Resources Owning the Past A brief history of copyright, how to protect your intellectual property, public domain, fair use, and copyright of images, music, movies and web. http://chnm.gmu.edu/digitalhistory/copyright/1.php The Fair Use Exception This article provides clear explanation of the four factors used in determining fair use. http://www.usg.edu/copyright/the_fair_use_exception/ Fair Use Checklist for Educators If you are unsure whether you are using fair use, refer to this checklist provided by Columbia University. http://copyright.columbia.edu/copyright/fair-use/fair-use-checklist/

Additional Resources : 

Additional Resources Code of Best Practices for Fair Use in Media Literacy Education This site by Temple University provides useful case studies as examples of fair use in education. It also “helps educators gain confidence about their rights to use copyrighted materials in developing students' critical thinking and communication skills.” http://www.mediaeducationlab.com/code-best-practices-fair-use-media-literacy Education Fair Use or Lose It! This article describes the affect on fair use and free expression due to copyright holders threats. http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3066

Creative Commons/Open Content : 

Creative Commons/Open Content Recently there is much interest in systems that support open sharing rather than protection and sale of intellectual property. Open source or open content promotes sharing of ideas and resources without many limitations from copyright law. Creative Commons is a place where copyright holders can indicate specifically how they would like their intellectual property to be used. This allows their work to be freely available for some uses but not for others. Creative Commons “works to increase the amount of creativity (cultural, educational, and scientific content) in “the commons” — the body of work that is available to the public for free and legal sharing, use, repurposing, and remixing. Our tools give everyone from individual creators to large companies and institutions a simple, standardized way to grant copyright permissions to their creative work.” (http://creativecommons.org/about/what-is-cc)

Additional Resources : 

Additional Resources Here are some open content resources: Wikipedia Wikipedia is a well known open content encyclopedia website. http://wikipedia.org/ Freereading Freereading is an open content, high quality, reading intervention curriculum for grades K-6 http://freereading.net/index.php?title=Main_Page Flexbook Flexbook is an online system for collaborative, custom-collated, self publishable educational content that can be adapted for individualized needs in a digital-age textbook known as a FlexBook. http://www.ck12.org/flexr/

Additional Resources : 

Additional Resources Creative Commons http://creativecommons.org/ Please watch the following video from Creative Commons to get a better idea of who they are. Get Creative!

Resources for this Presentation : 

Resources for this Presentation University System of Georgia. (2009, October 21). The fair use exception. Retrieved from http://www.usg.edu/copyright/the_fair_use_exception/ Ito, J. (2010). Creative commons. Retrieved from http://creativecommons.org/ Wilkes University Moodle. (2009) ED5001 resources. Retrieved from http://moodle1.wilkes.edu/mod/resource/view.php?id=54814 Wilson, C. (2005-2009). Copyright and fair use. Retrieved from http://fairuse.stanford.edu Blip Networks, Inc. (2009). A fair(y) use tale. Retrieved from http://blip.tv/file/1264787/ U.S. Copyright Office. (2009, May). Copyright law of the united states. Retrieved from http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html