Copyright & Ethical Issues

Copyright Primer: Fair Use Copyright Quiz
​by Hall Davidson 
The Copyright Quiz may be reproduced (with attribution) for educational purposes from halldavidson.net
©2001, Hall Davidson - hall@cccd.edu 

1. The owner of the local video store supports the school by donating one DVD rental-free to the school every Friday. The video is shown in the multi-purpose room to reward students with perfect attendance that week. It does improve attendance. This falls under “fair use."
  • ​Based on the 1981 guidelines from a congressional subcommittee, this is not fair use. There are several reasons this is not fair use: the video rental is not paid for, it is not shown to all students- only those with perfect attendance, it is shown for entertainment instead of educational purposes. According to the 1981 guidelines, the video can be shown for student instruction and not student entertainment.
2. A teacher buys a single-user program with department money and puts it on the Local Area Network (LAN). It is frequently used by several teachers at the same time. This is done in violation of a written district policy against using single-user programs on the LAN. After two years, the software company takes action against the individual teacher. The district is also liable.
  • This is not fair use. The teacher violated fair use by adding the single-user software program to the LAN. If the teacher had installed it onto one computer at the school, then that may have been within the fair use limits.
3. On her home VCR, a history teacher taped the original ABC news report of Nixon leaving the White House after resigning. She uses the entire news program every year in her classroom. This is fair use. 
  • The teacher or school was allowed 45 days after the date of the original recording to share the video with students. Retaining the tape and showing it to students over the course of several years is not fair use
​4. A school purchases a single copy of a math program and installs it on the server so it can be accessed by classrooms throughout the school and also on the stand-alone computers in the portables. The policy is that only one class can use it at a time and the policy is religiously enforced. Permissible.
  • This one depends of the license that accompanies the software. If the software allows for a single copy to be used school-wide then it is permissible. Otherwise, each classroom or student would need their own licensed copy of the software if that is what the software license requires. Placing it on the server is an issue as well and likely does not fall under fair use.​
5. Purchasing a computer program is the same as licensing it. 

  • When purchasing a computer program, the license for a user is typically included in the form of the EULA. However, they are not exactly the same thing.
6. A teacher rents Gone With the Wind to show the burning of Atlanta scene to her class while studying the Civil War. This is fair use. 
  • This is fair use: the rental is paid for, it being used for educational purposes for all students in her class, and the teacher is using part of the film instead of the entire film.
7. Copyrighted material used without permission in multimedia projects may remain in the student's portfolio forever. 

  • This is fair use if the student includes credit to the sources and follows the other guidelines to ensure that the work is attributed to to the correct source. 
8. Asking for permission is key to fair use protection in education. 

  • Not necessarily key, but asking for permission and being given it eliminates the need for many of the fair use guidelines. With the permission of the copyright owner an educator can use the material within the owners permission
9. Using a legal copy of an off-line Web Browser, a district technology specialist downloads and caches educational and non-educational web pages for school Internet trainings. This is fair use. 
  • This is fair use, the pages are for educational use and are cached. It would be similar to using print documents
10. A science teacher asks the school librarian to record a great episode of Reading Rainbow on its original broadcast on 3/02. He figures on using it for years. His students digitize parts for a multimedia class project. This is okay. 
  • This is mixed. It is fair use for the teacher to use the recording during the current school year, not subsequent years. The students can digitize parts of the broadcast for a multimedia project as long as they are only using part of the broadcast and not the entire thing. Attributions should still be made. In all this is okay.
11. A student finds a photo online dramatizing a pre-Columbian Viking landing in America. Since the school symbol is the Viking, he posts this photo on the school web page. It links back to the original website. This is fair use. 
  • This is not fair use. The website that the student linked to may not have had permission or used fair use policies to post it. The student should find the original and provide credit to the author or find a site that uses it within fair use guidelines.
12. A student doing a multimedia report copies the video of Kennedy's "We shall go to the moon" speech from the CD-ROM version of Groliers Encyclopedia. Her teacher posts the project on the school LAN. This is fair use. 
  • This is not fair use. The teacher should not post it to the school LAN, it was not intended for widespread use for a single-user version of the encyclopedia.
13. A school purchases a typing tutorial program and houses it in the library. It is checked out to students to take home. By enforced policy, the homes erase the program at the end of the two week checkout period. Permissible? 
  • This is permissible, the school purchased the tutorial and the use of it is removed from personal computers. It is assumed that the school follows appropriate use measures, as they are liable if they are not followed for sharing the software with students. Also, it is permissible because one student "uses" it/ checks it out at a time.
14. A student building a multimedia art project uses copyrighted images of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings downloaded from the web. He submits this project to her state’s Student Multimedia Festival (and others) honoring classroom work and wins the $1,000 prize for the school. This is permissible under fair use. 
  • Because there is a financial award this is not fair use.
15. The teacher of the winning multimedia project mentioned above shows it at an art conference for educators. It cost $50 to attend the conference and the teacher is awarded free attendance because he is a presenter. This is fair use. 
  • Because there is a financial aspect of the work being shown, this is not fair use.
16. A high school sells a student video yearbook made by volunteers for $25 to raise money for equipment for the school. They use popular music clips. The money all goes to the school. The songs are fully listed in the credits. Fair use. 
  • It depends on the length of the clips, however in general this is not fair use unless permission is granted to use the songs.
17. A school can only afford one copy of KidPix. It loads this onto the library computer and all students and all classes have access to it all day. The teachers copy and install KidPix Player on their classroom computers to evaluate the student work. This is permissible.

  •  This is not permissible. The school should use one copy of KidPix on one machine, and have a back up in case the original fails.
18. A teacher creates his own grading program. He transfers to another school and forgets to delete the program from the network. Everyone at his old school copies and uses the program. He sues the school and wins. He is likely to receive a significant monetary reward. 
  • Because it is the teacher's original work, and he because he won the lawsuit it seems that his work was copy written and the use by others was not permissible. It does seem that he should not have placed his grading program on the network where others had access to it, if he did not want them to use it.
19. An elementary school transcribes the lyrics from the album CATS for the school mini- musical. There is no admission charge. Fair use applies 
  • This is not fair use. Permissions should be requested to use the lyrics.
20. An enterprising media aid tapes 60 Minutes every week in case teachers need it. This is fair use. 
  • This is fair use, its a live broadcast intended for educational purposes.


Local District Copyright Policy



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