To Copy or Not to Copy? That is the REAL Question:

A Detailed Explanation of Copyrighting, Fair Use, & Creative

Commons

By: Monica H. FernandezMHFernandez@mac.com

Copyright?

What is the Copyright Law?

When we create some type of work, it automatically has a copyright on it. This means that other people cannot copy, reproduce, or distribute it without our permission.

Copyrighting in the Classroom:

• It is important students to fully understand what they can and cannot do. As teachers, we must explain that it is not legal to copy someone else's work without their permission or to quote them without using a reference.

Copyrighting for Teachers

• Educators are often sharing their work with each other. However, teachers need to understand that we still need permission to use others work.

Links for Teachers, Parents, and

Students:• Links for Teachers & Parents:– http://www.copyrightkids.org/teachrentfram

es.html– http://www.cybercitizenship.org/index/html

Links for Kids:– http://www.copyrightkids.org/– http://www.cybercitizenship.org/4kids/

4kids.html

Fair Use: What is it?• According to the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media

Literacy Education, Fair Use is basically considering all facts and circumstances and deciding if using an unlicensed copyrighted material generates social or cultural benefits that are grater than the cost it imposes on the copyright of the owner. Therefore, it is OK to use unlicensed material it can generate new and useful material that may have a great effect on our culture.

• Fair Use provides educators with the opportunity to be open and public about asserting the appropriateness of their practices and the justifications for them.

Video of Fair Use:

• This is a Link to a YouTube Video that gives a great explanation of what Fair Use is and how it relate to the Copyright Law: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GidwzOYiPl0

The Five Basic Principles of Fair Use:

1. Employing copyrighted material on media literacy lessons

2. Material in Preparing Curriculum Materials –

3. Sharing Media Literacy Curriculum Materials

4. Students Use of Copyrighted Materials in their

5. Developing Audience for Student Work • The informaiton found on this slide is from "The Code of Best Practices in

Fair Use for Media Literacy Education." http://online.education.ufl.edu/file.php/3208/05DigitalCitizen/CodeofBestPracticesinFairUse.pdf

Four Factor Test:• Only a Judge in a courtroom can determine if something is fair use or not.

However, you can use the "four factor test" (suggested on the ninch website: http://www.ninch.org/issues/copyright/FAIR_USE_EDUCATION/FAIRUSE_Intro/WhatIsFairUse.html) to try to make a personal judgment:

• The Four Factors laid down by Section 107 of copyright law are those to be used to determine whether a use of copyright material in a particular case is a "fair use" or not.

• 1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

• 2. the nature of the copyrighted work;• 3. 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. • 4.The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if

such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

Two Key Questions:• Judges turn to two key questions when trying to decided

if something can considered “fair use”:– Did the unlicensed use “transform” the material

taken from the copyrighted work by using it for a different purpose than that of the original, or did it just repeat the work for the same intent and value as the original?

– Was the material taken appropriate in kind and amount, considering the nature of the copyrighted work and of the use?

• The informaiton found on this cube is from"The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education." http://online.education.ufl.edu/file.php/3208/05DigitalCitizen/CodeofBestPracticesinFairUse.pdf

What does this mean?

• Since whatever we create, write, or post online has a copyright on it, others cannot freely use our work without our permission or getting a judge to determine “fair use”.

• But what if we WANT to share our work?

• How can we find work that creators want to share?

What is Creative Commons?

• Creative Commons is a program that was designed to help creators share their work with others while allowing them to specify the details. Creative Commons allows us to customize our work so we can tell people which parts we would allow them to use or remake and other parts that we want to keep to ourselves.

How can we do this?

• All you have to do is visit the Creative Commons Website (http://creativecommons.org) and answer a few questions about your creation and Creative Commons will make a custom copyright license for our work that others will follow.

The 6 Types of Licenses:

• Creative Commons offers six different types of licenses: Attribution, Attribution Share Alike, Attribution No Derivatives, Attribution Non-Commercial, Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike, Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives. Attributions let other copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work- and derivative works based upon it- but only if they give credit the way you request. If the license says Share Alike this means that you will allow others to distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs your work. Non-commercial means that you will allow other people to copy, distribute, display, and perform your work – and derivative works based upon it- but for noncommercial purposes only. If you choose to not have derivative works then you will let others copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work, not derivate works based upon it.

• This information was found on this websites: http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/

What Does This Mean For

Educators?

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

• Teachers often gather copyrighted information from the internet, conferences, other teachers, books, etc. We usually rely on the idea of sharing. However, according to copyright laws, we are technically not supposed to use the information we find without permission of the creator. Now, we have just learned how "Fair Use" can help use use material that is copyrighted however, this is not legal unless a judge decided the material is "Fair Use" and it can be a long process to determine what is "fair." Therefore, educators can benefit from using the Creative Commons webpage. This website will allow us to help other educators as well as find information that is safe for us to use. Creative commons is a wonderful idea and helps make 21st century learning a lot easier for teachers to implement in their classrooms.

What Does This Mean for Educators?