Copyright Issues In Education

by Delia Villarreal

EDTC 6342: Technology Leadership

We are in the age of technology.  This gives people the ability to easily use other people’s work without acknowledging the owner.  Duplicating material or transferring are some of the most common things that people do that violate the copyright law.  This puts today’s teachers in a critical situation when it comes to school materials.  As teachers we need to model honesty and correct usage of materials for our students.  Teachers cannot be doing this because they have a moral obligation to obey the rights of the copyright holders.  Some of the copyright laws may be too difficult to understand and this is why some teachers today struggle with copyright issues and the different laws concerning copyright.  In this wiki you will find a better way to understand common issues involving policies related to copyright in regards to education. 

• Licensing and Software Piracy
• Fair Use
• TEACH Act
• Plagiarism
• Web/Wiki Publishing   

Licensing and Software Piracy

The federal copyright law protects not only books, songs and movies it also protects computer software usage.  The law gives the owner of the copyright or the software publisher, the right to say how and under what circumstances the software can be produced, distributed or installed.  When purchasing software you are buying the right to use it under the restrictions the software publisher has established.  It is very important to read through the licensing agreement that comes with the software to avoid any penalties.  These are some of the things you need to do in order to not violate the federal copyright law.

• Do not install software on more computers than allowed by the licensing agreement. 

• Purchase network licenses or network rights if the campus has a LAN.  This will help guarantee that the several users of the application will be on the campus. 

• Backup copies are allowed but make sure you do not install and use on the computers. 

• Do not install any software purchased for the school on any home computers.  Some licensing agreements allow the installation of the software on home computers only if the teacher will be teaching from that computer.  As soon as the teacher stops teaching the software should be uninstalled from the computer.

Software Piracy and Law by Emory University states the different penalties for not following the federal copyright law for software.  This is a real resourceful document to read through when you have questions about software and licensing.

Fair Use 

Under the United States Copyright Law the term "fair use" allows a certain amount of copyrighted materials to be used without the need of obtaining permission from the copyright holder.  Fair use is a term that at times is difficult to understand by many, with teachers not being the exception.  Since fair use is very difficult to understand the UT System has created a simpler way to understand it.  UT System has come up with "Fair Use Rules of Thumb" and "Four Factor Fair Use Test".  The four factor fair use test is used when you are not sure if you will be violating copyright laws after you have used the fair use rules of thumb.  The following is valuable information that has been retrieved from the UT System fair use of copyrighted material website.  For more extensive details it is best to visit the links provided on the phrases.  

Fair Use Rules of Thumb

The fair use rules of thumb covers seven different uses of copyrighted material for educational purposes. 

• coursepacks.
  • When teaching a course there is a limit of material that can be used and certain things that need to be be included.  It is very important to get permission to use material that will be used over again by the same professor and for the same course.
• distance learning
  • In distance learning there are some restrictions to incorporating performance of others's work and certain things need to be included.  Only students and administrative staff have access to the information, but once the semester is over the access should be terminated. 
• image archives
  • You need to ask yourself if the image is available on-line, for sale or licensed.
• multimedia work
  • The multimedia work created by the person has rights in regards to the student, faculty and staff.  It is important to only use a small amount of someones else's work and not to make too many copies.   
• music for educational use
  • Music has a limit to the amount of copying and you need to include appropriate citations.  It is important to replace and emergency copy with an original that has been purchased. 
• research copies
  • There is a limit to what can be done with research copies. 
• electronic reserves
  • There are limits to reserving the material and always needs to be cited appropriately.  Only students and administrative staff have access and once the semester is over the access needs to be terminated.   

Each of these types are very important and you need to get permission for all of the the material that will be used again for the same course and professor.  If you are still in doubt if you are violating any copyright law after going over the fair use rules of thumb the next step is to take the four factor fair use test.

Four Factor Fair Use Test 

This test includes comments under each factor.  The comments under fair use are on one side and the comments under copyright are on the other side.  As you take the test you should weigh your response to see if it leans more towards fair use or towards getting copyright permission.  This makes it simpler to understand if you need to get permission to use the material.  The four factors in the fair use test are:

                                   FairUse                                                                                            Copyright

1.  What is the character of the use?  

         --- Educational, personal or non-profit                                                 ---Commercial                       

2.  What is the nature of the work used?

     ---Fact or published                                                                           ---Imaginative or unpublished

3.  How much of the work will be used?

     ---Small amount                                                                                ---Not a small amount

4.  If it were widespread, what effect will it have on the market in regards to the original and permission?

    ---The first three factors are in favor of fair use.                                     ---If it takes away from the sales of the original

Fair use can be complicated to understand, but it is very important that as teachers we are familiar with it and understand it.  In case you are still in doubt it is always best to get permission to avoid any penalties.  Fair use covers a great amount of information it is best to view the links if you need more explicit details on it.

TEACH Act

TEACH Act is Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization Act.  This act was passed in 2002 by the United States Congress.  This act is a modification made to the copyright act of 1976.  Before this act copyright laws allowed teachers to copy documents or copyrighted materials in a face-to-face classroom setting.  Since we are in the technology era, where technology has grown significantly in the classroom setting, this act has been added to include distance learning.  The TEACH Act states what is allowed under distance learning, it also establishes the requirements the students, teachers, universities and staff need to go by in order to be in compliance.  The TEACH Act allows teachers and students to display copyrighted material as part of a course with certain conditions.

• The material displayed needs to be part of instructional activity.

• It needs to be under the supervision of the instructor.

• It needs to be an important part of the class session.

• All the copies displayed or transmitted in the class session need to be legal copies.

Guide To The TEACH Act is a very valuable resource to have.  This documents covers and answers many questions concerning rights in a distance learning course. 

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is when you use someone else’s thoughts or words as if they were your own.  This is different from copyright infringement.  Copyright infringement is when you violate the rights of the copyright owner.  You can avoid plagiarism in several ways.

• Use quotation marks when using direct quotes.
• Do not copy the language or thoughts of another person like if they were your own.
• Do not use statements that show the opinion of another person that is not identified.
• Do not use statistics, charts or tables without giving credit to the owner.
• Do not include commonly known facts or information.

As teachers it is very important to model for our students.  It is very important for our students to see academic honesty and correct practice of crediting sources.

The article The New Plagiarism:  Seven Antidotes to Prevent Highway Robbery in an Electronic Age by Jamie Mckenzie lists seven antidotes against plagiarism.

For the students to avoid plagiarism, tools are available to help them cite information correctly.  Nauset Public Schools has developed a research and style manual to help students generate correct citations.

Nauset Public Schools Research and Style Manual Grades 1-6

Nauset Public Schools Research and Style Manual Grades 7-12

Web/Wiki Publishing 

Web/wiki publishing follows different copyright rules because it is information available to the public.  Material that is considered fair use in the classroom may not be considered fair use when published in the web/wiki.  Information available on the web/wiki is viewed as published information.  There are several things you need to keep in mind when creating a web/wiki. 

• It is important to have permission on any text, graphics, and sound files that are published on web pages. 
• It is important to know if any of the links on the web pages created by ones self follow the copyright rules for web/wiki.  This is because links to pages that are violating the copyright rules make your web page guilty of copyright infringement. 
• It is important to know if any of the links have negative statements.  If the negative statement is associated to a person, business, or organization this makes your web page guilty of defamation. 
• When you use logos or trademark symbols on your web page instead of a link to the proper site you are violating trademark rules. 
• It is not illegal to deep link to pages within a site instead of to the home page, but you run the risk of sidestepping information. 
• You need to be very careful when you use frames in your web page that make it hard to view the true URL of the page.  This is because it may give the wrong impression.  It may seem that the information seen with in the frame is information that belongs to that other author.  To help with this it is better to use links that clearly show you are going off this site and on to another site.

For a more information on web/wiki publishing read through the following article "Getting Permission to Publish:  10 Tips for Webmasters".  This article offers very helpful information on web/wiki publishing. 

Video

This video below created by Margaret White talks about the different copyright issues in distance learning you may come across.  

References 

Fair Use Rules of Thumb. Oct., 2009.  The University of Texas Systems.  Retrieved  from http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/copypol2.htm 

Guide to the TEACH Act.  Oct., 2009.  Office of Legal Affairs.  Retrieved from http://www.usg.edu/legal/copyright/teach_act.phtml.

Software Piracy and the Law.  Oct., 2009.  Emory University.  Retrieved from https://it.emory.edu/showdoc.cfm?docid=1652 

Using The Four Factor Fair Use Test. Oct., 2009.  The University of Texas Systems.  Retrieved  from http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/copypol2.htm#test.