Partner A, make a copy of this sheet and title it What Is Fair Use- Your name & partners name

and share with your partner.

Definition: Fair use is the right to use portions of copyrighted materials without permission for
purposes of education, commentary, or parody. - See more at:
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/academic-and-educational-permissions/non-
coursepack/#sthash.N9bxtVXi.dpuf

For each item below, work with your partner to decide if it falls within fair use or not based on
these Academic and Educational Guidelines. Record your answers and reasons for your
answers on the document. Be prepared to defend your answer.

1. A teacher does a unit on poetry. He photocopies and distributes to each student a 20
line poem by a contemporary poet. He chooses a different poem by the same poet to
distribute on four consecutive Mondays during the unit.
1.1. Not fair use; the guidelines say that not one more than 1 short poem may be
copied from the same author in one class term. So, the teacher cannot use a
different poem by the same author in 4 consecutive weeks.

2. A teacher makes 10 copies of one chapter out of a book to give to student partners to
read.
2.1. This is fair use because there is one chapter from one book being copied and
given out to the students. As long as the book is not a textbook, this is fair use.
Less than 10% of the total book.

3. A teacher records a PBS history video and plays it for the class a week later.
3.1. This is fair use because he plays it in less than 10 days. After the recording has
exceeded 10 days, the video recording can only be used for teacher use, and not
for classroom viewing. The recording can also only be kept up to 45 days. A
teacher cannot record something one month and then wait for two months later,
just to show the video in that specific unit--that is not fair use.

4. A student buys a CD on iTunes. One of the songs relates to a Justice theme they are
learning about in school, so they make a copy of the song on a CD and give to the
teacher to play to the class.
4.1. This is fair use because in no case, because they are only choosing 1 song out
of the entire album and are sharing it with the teacher, not for performance use
but just for academic exposure.

5. A school administrator decides that all students in the 6th grade at her school should be
exposed to texts from diverse cultural perspectives. She asks teachers to make a
photocopy pack for every student in their classroom that includes 10 poems, each
written by a person from a different world culture.
5.1. Not fair use; it is enforced upon the teachers by the administrator and its not
decided upon simply by the teachers.
Questions:
-How are teachers punished if they disobey this fair use policy? Who is the one monitoring if the
teachers are following the fair use regulations?

-Are textbooks held to the same fair use standards? How do teachers distinguish between what
books or curriculum packs are ok or not okay to use?