Professor Mary Scott's Copyright, Fair Use, Personal Rights, and Privacy Toolkit

Introduction

Welcome! I am not a lawyer, thus this information is only a simplified guideline and not intended to take the place of legal advice. It is difficult to understand Laws involving Copyright, Fair Use, and your personal rights, including Privacy Rights. I hope you find this site easier to understand than https://www.copyright.gov/ where you can find over 300 pages listing all the copyright laws. Whether you are a teacher or student COPPA, DMCA, FERPA,  and TEACH Act, are acronyms you should be as familiar with as the terms Fair Use and the Public Domain. 

Task:  Go here if you desire to read more or watch videos covering the basics of copyright. Included is a link to using the proper style to attribute sources of your work. There is also a link to OER (open education resources) and CC (creative commons). These are resources you can modify for lessons or projects.

Process:  The most common themes repeated are the concepts of fair use, derivate works, and basic provisions of the copyright laws to the authors of works. Guidelines of these may be found on this page.

Credits:  If you desire other resources, I have listed law review articles which I found most useful in understanding copyright laws. If you have ever been faced with a "takedown request" you disagree with, I recommend Guzman (2015).

Task

APA Style for attributing copyrighted work: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/ 

  • Whether you are paraphrasing or using a quote, you must attribute your resources. This site provides examples and other styles you might need to use.

Crash Course in Copyright:

Creative Commons & Open Education Resources:

Privacy Rights:

Public Domain: http://publicdomainreview.org/guide-to-finding-interesting-public-domain-works-online/#section3a

  • This site is to help you find public domain material for your use, but it also explains the meanings of creative commons labels.
  • There are links to other sites as well.

Teacher's Guide to FAIR USE: https://www.xavier.edu/library/about/documents/copyright_9-23-08.pdf

Process

There are certain themes repeated in law review articles. These major themes are what I used to guide this toolkit:

  • Basic Copyright Protection (Thornburg, 2003): 
    1. The author has the right to reproduce and create derivative works.
    2. The author has the right to distribute or to display the work.
    3. The author has the right to perform their work publicly or through digital audio transmission.
    4. The author's rights are only limited by the fair use doctrine.
  • Guidelines for Fair Use (Thornburg, 2003): The copyrighted work is used for purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research, and depends on the following:
    1. Use is for nonprofit educational purposes.
    2. The nature of the copyrighted work.
    3. How much of the work is used.
    4. The effect of the use upon the market (profits). (Dourado, E., & Tabarrok, A. , 2015, is recommended for additional viewpoints.)
  • Derivative Works: (Chatelain, 2012 and Van Camp 1994)
    1. Creative Commons outlines how you can use the work which includes producing a derivative work from the original.
    2. If you are creating any other type of derivative work from copyright material, you will need written permission.
    3. If you desire to create artwork (sketches or paintings) from photographs, you would be best to find work from the public domain or take your own photographs.
  • ONLINE: If you teach online you may already be aware of some of the unique issues. 
    1. Using links available through the internet or OER resources
    2. Using youtube channels such as TED ED, or linking directly to their lessons.
    3. Films under copyright can only be viewed if your online class is protected, requiring login with unique password. If your school as subscriptions to services such as Films On Demand, they have obtained permission already to use the materials and you will not have to. 
    4. Another way to control what your students view for online or a "flipped lesson" you may want to use Nearpod. I currently have my own subscription for $100/year. The app is free to students; they only have to have the current code. You can also create quizzes or have students submit a brief written response to the lesson or video viewed.
  • Abstract Ideas: It can be a challenge to know what is and is not considered an original idea that needs a copyright or patent. This is beyond the scope of this toolkit; however, if you desire further information on this challenge I recommend Durham (2011) and Lobel (2015).

Evaluation

      Throughout this course I have rediscover old resources and discovered new resources to aide myself and my students. For example, this semester I took on the responsibility of microbiology. My students are required to write a report after identifying their unknown bacteria. To assist them in future work, as well as to demonstrate what they have learned, they are required to use APA format. Having a site with examples increases their confidence.  Yet, the site is also valuable when I assign my anatomy and physiology students an essay requiring college level writing and APA style for the essay.

     To maximize the effectiveness of the toolkit, I included a copyright crash course courtesy of "CrashCourse."  This can be beneficial to both students and teachers needing a quick summary. Having also been introduced to more government sites through this class, I have included them since ultimately the original sources are sometimes needed. In this way, if a student or teacher asked me about copyright, intellectual property, fair use, or personal rights, I could send them here for a single stop to link to all the key information they need.

 

Conclusion

This web quest or toolkit is a summary of the important points teachers, students, and law-abiding citizens should know about copyright laws, including how to attribute resources, and how they may be protected under copyright laws. Although it does not replace legal advice, it allows one to become informed and carry a knowledgeable discussion on copyright, fair use, intellectual property and personal rights. 

Credits

Chatelain, M. (2012). Harry Potter and the prisoner of copyright law: fan fiction, derivative works, and the fair use doctrine. Tulane Journal of Technology & Intellectual Property 15, 199-217.

Dourado, E., & Tabarrok, A. (2015). Public choice perspectives on intellectual property. Public  Choice, 163(1-2), 129-151. http://dx.doi.org.proxy1.ncu.edu/10.1007/s11127-014-0195-x

Durham, A. L. (2011). The paradox of "abstract ideas." Utah Law Review 2011(3), 797-853.

Guzman, F. (2015). The tension between derivative works online protected by fair use and the takedown provisions of the online copyright infringement liability limitation act. Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property 13(2), 181-196.

Lobel, O. (2015). The new cognitive property: human capital law and the reach of intellectual property. Texas Law Review 93, 789-851.

Reese, R. A. (2007). Public but private: copyright’s new unpublished public domain. Texas Law Review 85, 585-664.

Thornburg, R. (2003). The impact of copyright law on distance education programs: how fair use and the CONFU guidelines may shape the future of academia. Southern Illinois University Law Journal 27(2), 321-355.

Van Camp, J. (1994). Creating works of art from works of art: the problem of derivative works. Journal of Arts Management, Law & Society 24(3), 209-223.

Teacher Page

Our jobs as teachers is complex, but our goal is to prepare our students for success. Reviewing copyright issues when projects are introduced is an excellent real life lesson for our students. The advantage of having the internet is students can access examples of how to cite resources. These are all materials teachers can also benefit from as we prepare lessons. Consider making you own contributions to OER's and CC's and searching there to find lesson ideas. Be brave in creating your own original diagrams and adding to other's; in this way you can be an example to your students. If you are preparing lessons on copyright, I hope this will shorten your search time. If you are not yet familiar with "CrashCourse", I have found them helpful in many different ways for my students.