Library Media Services

•Federal copyright law (Title 17 of the U.S. Code – The Copyright Act) protects original works of authorship including, but not limited to,:

•Books, articles, and other written material, whether published or not

•Music

•Movies

•Photographs

•Software

•Author or creator of the work owns the copyright.

•Author of creator may transfer ownership to another person or entity, in which case, that person or entity is considered the owner.

•Owner of the copyright has the exclusive right to control how the work is used, distributed, and displayed.

•Copyright arises as soon as the work is fixed in a tangible medium.

•Example: when the work is written, recorded, painted, photographed, or typed and saved to a computer hard drive or other data storage medium.

•There is no need to have the work officially published or to have the work officially registered by the U.S. Copyright Office.

•If you created, authored, or developed the work – you own it!

•Literary works and printed materials

•Dramatic works and accompanying music

•Photographs

•Musical works and accompanying works

•Artistic works (pictorial, graphic, and sculptural)

•Sound recordings

•Architectural works

•Software

•Content found on the Internet and Web pages (including text and images)

Under the copyright law, only copyright owners have the exclusive right to do or to allow others to the following:

•Reproduce – make copies of their works publicly or privately.

•Adapt – prepare additional works derived from their copyrighted work.

•Distribute – disseminate copies of their works.

•Perform – perform work publicly (At a location open to the public or to persons other than close family and social network. Does not include sound recordings.).

•Display – Display their work publicly (applies to all works except sound recordings and architectural works).

When I Buy a Book, Music CD, or Magazine, What am I Buying?

•You have only purchased a “copy” of the work, not the work itself.

•You have a limited right to use that one copy for personal use. Your use of that copy is limited to that one copy.

•You gain no other rights in the copyrighted work.

•You have the right to do as you wish with that copy, and only that copy. However, you do not have the right to make additional copies of your purchased copy, nor do you have the right to distribute additional copies of your purchased copy to the public.

If I purchased something from Teachers Pay Teachers, what can I do with it?

You have only purchased a “copy” of the work, not the work itself.

•You have a limited right to use that one copy for personal use. Your use of that copy is limited to that one copy.

•You gain no other rights in the copyrighted work.

•You have the right to do as you wish with that copy, and only that copy. However, you do not have the right to make additional copies of your purchased copy, nor do you have the right to distribute additional copies of your purchased copy to the public. You cannot share it with a teacher down the hall, or post on your classroom website page for public use. 

You can use copyrighted materials only if:

You and your students have legally purchased copies of the work.

OR

You have obtained permission from the copyright owner to make copies and use the materials in class.

OR

You don’t need permission because an exemption applies.

You don’t need permission for the following:

•Face‐to‐face teaching activities

•Copyright law provides a face‐to‐face teaching exemption (Section 110 of the Copyright Act).

•Allows faculty to use or display copyrighted materials during face‐to‐face teaching activities (doesn’t require owners permission).

•Applies as long as there is no direct or indirect admission charge. It must be a regular part of the instructional activities and directly related to teaching content.

•Materials that are not copyrightable

•The following items are not copyrightable and therefore can be used freely in your classroom without restriction:

•Ideas (not fixed in a tangible medium)
•Facts (or research of facts)
•Discovery methods
•Concepts
•Methodology
•Governmental works

•Materials in the public domain

•What works are considered public domain?

•Works that have expired copyrights (Copyrights expire 70 years after the owner’s death.).
•Governmental works.
•Works that the author dedicated for the public domain to be use with no restrictions.
•Works that do not meet the requirements of copyrights (e.g., ideas, facts, and research).
•Remember it is the expression of ideas, facts, and research that may be copyrighted, not the ideas, facts, or research itself.

•Fair use

•The Fair Use Doctrine (Section 107 of the Copyright Act) provides for limited use of copyrighted materials for educational and research purposes without obtaining the permission of the copyright owner.

•If I only use copyrighted works while teaching, am I always covered under the Fair Use Doctrine?

No, not necessarily.

•When copyrighted works are used to teach, critique, research, report, or provide commentary, you must still use the works in a fair and reasonable manner.

•Fair and reasonable use is determined on a case‐by‐case basis, but there are guidelines.

•Fair Use does not give you an unlimited right to copy and distribute material at will, so be cautious.

•There are four factors used to determine fair use:

1.What is the character of the use?

•Is it for an educational purpose?
•Educational purposes are more likely to be considered fair use.

2.What is the nature of the work to be used?

•Is the work primarily imaginative or factual?
•Use is more likely to be considered fair if the work is more factual in nature.

3.What is the amount and substantiality of the portion to be used?

•Is it a small portion or the whole work?
•Using a portion of the work is more likely to be considered fair use.

4.Will the use negatively affect the value of the copyrighted material?

•Does the copied material compete with potential profits to the copyright owner?
•More likely to be considered fair use if it has no impact on potential profits of the copyright owner.
•Repeated use tends to affect market value.

General guidelines for using materials in the classroom:

1.A single copy of the materials for teaching purposes is generally okay.

2.Multiple copies are okay provided that:

•The number of copies do not exceed more than one copy per student;
•The inspiration and decision of the teacher to use the work and the moment of its use should be reasonably close in time; and
•The work includes a notice of copyright.

3.Multiple copying and distribution of materials should not be used as a substitute for the purchase of books by students.

4.Do not copy and distribute consumable materials such as workbooks, standardized tests, test booklets, etc.

5.Printing companies may be able to help you with obtaining permissions for your course packs or for paying appropriate license fees.

 

Best Practices

•Make a good faith effort to obtain the author’s permission to:

•Transmit or make multiple copies of copyrighted materials.
•Use materials in a class for more than one semester.
•Use materials for any use that falls outside the Fair Use guidelines.

•Whether you need permission or not, always provide attribution to the original author and display a copyright notice.

•Can I use copyrighted materials in my multimedia projects, such as a PowerPoint presentation?

••Yes. Faculty members can incorporate portions of copyrighted materials into PowerPoint presentations and other multimedia projects for educational purposes, but they should follow the Fair Use guidelines, such as:

•Instruct students face‐to‐face.
•Assign or direct students to self‐study the material.
•Use limited portions of the material.
•Provide copyright attribution.

•When I develop my multimedia projects, can I alter portions of other’s copyrighted materials?

•Yes. But make sure that the alterations:
•Are consistent with your instructional objectives.
•Are noted within the multimedia project.

Using copyrighted materials in school projects

•If you don’t follow the rules, you could be committing copyright infringement!

•What does it mean to infringe on someone’s copyright?

•Copyright owners have exclusive rights to copy, adapt, perform, display, and disseminate their own works.

•You must obtain the owner’s permission to use copyrighted material, or if you don’t obtain permission, your use must fall into an exemption (e.g, Fair Use).

•If you don’t have permission or your use is not an exemption, you may be committing copyright infringement.

 

Copyright infringement may result in significant civil and criminal penalties for both you and the school system.

When you want to perform, display, or show a film, video, or TV program, whether it be as part of a course, at a group or club activity, at an organization event, or as a training exercise, you have to consider the rights of the those who own the copyright to the work you want to use. This consideration must be made regardless of who owns the video or where you obtained it. Copyright owners have certain rights, which are commonly known as public performance rights (PPR).
 

Do I Need Public Performance Rights

YES -- you need public performance rights:

 

• If the showing of the video is open to the public, such as a screening at a public event, OR
• If the showing is in a public space where access is not restricted, such as a a showing of a film for a class but in a venue that is open to anyone to attend, OR
• If persons attending are outside the normal circle of family and friends, such as a showing of a film by a club or organization.

NO -- you do not need public performance rights:

• If you are privately viewing the film in your home with only family and friends in attendance, OR If you are an instructor showing the film in class as part of the course curriculum to officially enrolled students in a classroom that is not open to others to attend, OR
• If the film is in the public domain.

Why should I obey copyright law?

Violating copyright law through unauthorized use of a movie:

• Could result in expensive fines and negative publicity.
• Prevents those who worked hard on a film from receiving their just compensation.
• Essentially steals motivation to create from authors, computer programmers, playwrights, musicians, inventors, movie producers and more.

A public performance license ensures money will be paid to the entire cast and crew who worked on a film from start to finish. If these men and women do not receive this hard-earned revenue through sources like licensing fees, they may no longer invest their time, research and development costs to create new movies.
Motion picture companies can and will go to court to ensure their copyrights are not violated. Those convicted could face embarrassing publicity, up to five years in prison and fines ranging up to $250,000.

How to I obtain Public Performance Rights

Your school should purchase a license through a company such as Swank Motion Pictures that will cover the school for most movies shown on campus.

What is NOT covered by Public Performance Rights?

Video Streaming services including, but not limited to, Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Disney + are not covered under Public Performance Licenses and specifically address the issue in their Terms of Use. These services are personal, household services and are not intended for school environments. Using your personal account at school in your classroom is a violation of copyright law and you are liable.

https://www.edutopia.org/article/teachers-guide-copyright-and-fair-use/

https://www.mtna.org/MTNA/Learn/Copyright_FAQs.aspx

https://marymount.libguides.com/ - has some good info on multimedia presentations

Using copyrighted materials in school projects

Copyright, Fair Use and Plagiarism for students

https://www.steezy.co/posts/music-copyright-for-dancers