Copyright Laws

The basic premise of copyright law is to provide the creator the exclusive right to control who can make copies of their work, or create works derived from their original work. If you create something, and it fits the definition of a creative work, you get to control who can make copies of it and how they make copies. The world wide web provides so much information it is important to have a basic understanding of what is involved in copyright laws.

The TEACH act

The TEACH act stands for Technology, Education, and Copyright Harmonization. It is an act for educators, especially for ones engaging in or providing distance education. Basic copyright laws needed to changed with the emergence of technology, there had to be some conditions made to protect the rights of the persons who have copyrighted materials, and the TEACH act was the result. There are severe limitations on distance education and quite a lengthy criteria needs to be met. What can be used is a lot less than what was allowed under the fair use agreement of the original copyright law. Also under this act, not only does the instructor have to be careful of what he/she is showing as part of instruction, but must make sure the receiver of the education doesn’t tape or duplicate the instruction.

Video & Audio

Most educators consider the showing of a copyrighted video to be a fair use of the material as long as you are not profiting from it. Therefore if you are using video or audio in class and you are not doing it for entertainment or collecting a fee from the students it is considered fair use of materials. That the same holds for any video copied. If it is used it for instructional purposes, not for profit, it's a fair use.

Software

Unauthorised copying of software is illegal. It is illegal to make and distribute unauthorised copies of software to class members or colleagues. When a piece of software is purchased, you are actually buying the right to use it, not own it therefore, it is important to know what type of licences your district has for the software. In general, the purchase of a piece of software enables that software to be installed and used in a single machine. If your intention is to use it in multiple places, you would need to purchase a license that enables you to do so. There is software that is public domain, known as shareware. This software is not copyrighted and may be distributed publically.

Materials downloaded from the internet and Linking rights

The amount of information that is available on the internet is endless and it seems that there's not a great deal of awareness on the part of today's students or faculty of what the copyright law says. It is important when you begin to teach children that the internet can be used as a resource that you also teach them the value of respecting people's ideas as property. The challenge when using information from electronic media sources is that these sources lack an agreed-upon format and are not as fixed and stable as print sources. It is essential however, to give credit to any source of information that is used. You must document any information: facts, opinions, quotations that is referenced. What is most important in documenting electronic resources is to give the reader as much essential information as possible (e.g. author, title, publication data, date accessed, URL) to identify the source you are citing.

There is also some question as to whether linking to a site is an infringement of copyright law. A link is simply a pointer, and this is what the internet is based on--sites directing one to other related sites.

References

EH.Net Mailing List Archive: EH.Teach Legality of Classroom Video Use Aug., 1995 ECONHIST.TEACH POSTINGS <http://www.eh.net/pipermail/eh.teach/1995-August/000080.html>

Harper, Georgia. "The Teach Act: Finally Becomes Law." Nov., 13, 2002. Online Posting. The University of Texas System. <http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/teachact.htm>

Brown, Melissa Burgess. "Electronic Copyright." KeyNotes: www4teachers. 2002. AlTec, The University of Kansas. <http://www.4teachers.org/keynotes/Okerson/>

"Software Copyright." adapted from a brochure published jointly by EDUCOM and ITAA (copyright (c) January 1993) <http://www.brighton.ac.uk/is/swcopy.html>

Templeton, Brad. "Linking Rights." <http://www.templetons.com/brad/linkright.html>