Alyssa Sloan

Professor Wolfe

ETEC 424

June 12, 2019

The Impact of Copyright and Fair Use in Education

The importance of understanding Copyright and Fair Use is crucial to a student’s

academic development. The last thing that a student or educator wants to experience is possibly

committing copyright infringement, that can ruin a lot. Based off laws, we are able to practice a

right called, “Fair Use”. The author states that fair use is the right to use parts of copyrighted

material without permission (Stim, 2016). There are several steps to take to make sure that you

are correctly implementing fair use. In order to prevent anything that may entail legal

consequences, we should be practicing fair use correctly (Stim, 2016).

In the fair use world, there is something that they call educational fair use. Educational

fair use can sometimes be misunderstood as being protected as long as it is for educational

purposes (Starr, 2015). Unfortunately, this is not the case and students and educators will still

need to be cautious of what they use. Starr explains a good point by stating, “when in doubt, ask

permission” (Starr, 2015). Something to keep in mind that Starr mentions is, “an author does not

have to register the work, announce that the work is copyright protected, or display the copyright

symbol to enjoy copyright protection” (Starr, 2015).

It is important as educators that we understand fair use and are able to guide and teach

our students how to properly use it. Some ways that you can remind your students of fair use is
to post the rules somewhere in the classroom that they can follow, guide them to certain websites

that can help, or even assist in finding appropriate work. According to the article written by The

University of Chicago, there is a list of four factors that can be followed to determine if

something is fair use or not (The University of Chicago). These four factors are: purpose, nature,

amount, and effect (The University of Chicago). Purpose, is the purpose of the use of content,

nature, is the nature of the copyrighted work being used, amount, is amount of work being used,

and the effect is how it effects the original work (The University of Chicago). By following these

factors, it respects the authors original work and also protects the individual using the work.
 References

Starr, L. (2015). Education World: The Educators Guide to Copyright and Fair Use. Colchester,

CT: Education World, Inc. Retrieved from

https://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/curr280b.shtml

Stim, R. (2016). Copyright and Fair Use: Educational Uses of Non-coursepack Materials.

Stanford University Libraries. Retrieved from

https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/academic-and-educational-permissions/non-

coursepack/

The University of Chicago. Understanding Copyright: Fair Use and Other Educational Uses.

The University of Chicago. Retrieved from

https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/copyrightinfo/fairuse.html#thumb