Chat Room: When Is Fair Use Fair?

Its not surprising that the press focuses on the illegal sharing of movies, MP3 files, and software over the Internet. After all, few people believe these activities are legal. In education, however, copyright violations happen all the time, and many folks think they're perfectly legit. The reason is that although most educators are familiar with the concept of "fair use"—which allows librarians and teachers to use copyrighted materials for educational purposes without seeking prior permission—few really understand it.

It's not uncommon for a teacher to show 102 Dalmatians, or a similar movie, to her class to prevent kids from tearing the paint off the walls the day before a school vacation. But those of us who understand copyright know that baby-sitting isn't an educational function. Yet in the minds of many educators, an educational purpose appears to mean anything that involves the school building or any of its staff or students—which, of course, isn't true. "I am afraid far too many teachers interpret fair use as being able to do anything they wish to do with materials," says school technology guru Doug Johnson, director of media and technology for the Mankato (MN) Public Schools.

The fair use section of the U.S. Copyright Act makes it clear that using portions of copyrighted works is legal for "criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research." But there are limits to the ways in which educators can legitimately use copyrighted materials. For example, a teacher who can't afford to purchase 25 copies of Frog and Toad Are Friends (Harper, 1970) for his class cannot legally give every student a photocopy of the book. It's these kinds of restrictions that many educators find difficult to grasp—so they simply ignore them.

Because many students, teachers, and librarians are confused about how much of a copyrighted work may be used for educational purposes without permission, I've included a list of recommended guidelines. These suggestions are taken from two Web resources that you should visit—school librarian Joyce Valenza's "Student Guidelines for Multimedia and Web Page Production" (mciunix.mciu.k12.pa.us/~spjvweb/guidelines.html) and the "Fair Use Guidelines for Educational Multimedia" (www.libraries.psu.edu/mtss/fairuse/guidelindoc.html). Keep in mind that these recommendations are merely guidelines, not legally binding mandates.

Text: Up to 10 percent or 1,000 words of a copyrighted text may be used—whichever is less. An entire poem may be used if it's less than 250 words; for longer poems, a maximum of 250 words may be used.

Music and lyrics: Up to 10 percent of a copyrighted musical composition may be reproduced, but no more than 30 seconds of an individual composition.

Visual images: A photograph or illustration may be used in its entirety, but no more than five images by an individual artist or photographer. No more than 10 percent or a maximum of 15 images of a collective work may be copied.

Films and videos: Up to 10 percent of a copyrighted work or three minutes may be reproduced, whichever amount is smaller.

Talking about fair use and sharing these guidelines with your students will introduce them to the concept of intellectual property. Students also need to know that even for legitimate educational purposes, copyrighted materials should never be posted on the Internet without the prior written consent of the copyright holders. The reason for this is obvious: once copyrighted materials appear on the Internet, the general public can freely access them, depriving copyright holders control of their works and potential profits.

Today, fair use is under attack. Because of the ease of electronic copying, corporations such as Sony and Microsoft are pushing Congress to tighten—or even eliminate—the fair use provision. If they get their way, changes in the law would make it illegal for libraries to loan students digital materials for research projects. Under some of the stricter proposals, students and researchers would have to pay for each use of copyrighted materials, for educational or other purposes. Librarians need to be aware of impending legislation and be prepared to fight such proposals. As the controversy over the use of electronic files continues, it's important to understand what you are entitled to use and what you aren't. It's only fair.