Teachers may use any original materials in a face-to- face teaching session without fear of copyright infringement. The same rules do not apply to online sessions. FAIR USE Use the four rules to check for the possibility of a Fair Use exemption of Copyright: Purpose and Character of the use Nature of the work Amount of the work used Affect on the market IN-PERSON VS. ONLINE CLASSROOM The Fair Use rules contain added restrictions for online classrooms. Public websites are available to those outside of your classroom, so it is impossible to police who looks at materials Materials that are scanned or shared digitally are endlessly reproducible, and it will be much harder to prevent loss of revenue for the original author. WHAT TEXTS CAN BE PLACED IN A PUBLIC ONLINE CLASSROOM? Works in the public domain Before 1928= Fine to upload 1928-1978= Depends on whether the owner chose to enforce Copyright After 1978= 70 years after the authors death & 95 or 120 years for corporate texts. Works created by the U.S. government Works with an appropriate Creative Commons License IS IT ALRIGHT FOR MRS. JONES TO POST A SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET ON HER PUBLIC ONLINE CLASSROOM? Yes, Shakespeares works are now in the Public Domain HOW DO I USE COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL IN AN ONLINE CLASSROOM? There are instances when copyrighted material may be used by educators in an online classroom. Rules: It must be password protected It must be used by an educator directly with students enrolled in the course It must be directly tied to the content of the course The material may not be a textbook that is normally purchased as a classroom material Mrs. Smith thinks that her senior Chemistry students would benefit from watching a copyrighted film about the importance of voting. Can she stream it to her online classroom?
No, it is probably not a good idea because the
material does not relate to the content of her course. OTHER RESTRICTIONS While copyrighted material is permissible to be used in protected online classrooms, you may need to obtain permission to use materials if you use them year after year. You should make students aware that distributing copyrighted information is restricted under Fair Use and the Teach Act. IS IT A BETTER IDEA TO E-MAIL MY STUDENTS COPYRIGHTED WORKS? No, this is considered distribution of the materials and might be harder to control than posting it to a password protected online classroom. LINKING TO OTHER WEBSITES At this time there are no guidelines preventing teachers from linking to reputable publically available webpages It is probably a good idea to avoid webpages that may be posting pirated content Linking to reputable content providers is a better choice than posting documents to your own online classroom when the option is available. RESOURCES What faculty need to know about copyright for teaching. (2010). Find More: American University Library. Retrieved from: https://www.american.edu/library/documents/uploa d/Copyright_for_Teaching.pdf