Q. The owner of the local Blockbuster
Video store supports the school by donating one videotape rental-free to
the school every Friday. The video is shown in the multipurpose room
to reward students with perfect attendance that week. This is fair
use.
A. False. "Entertainment" and "reward"
are explicitly excluded under copyright guidelines. To show a movie for
entertainment purposes, you must obtain a version from an authorized distributor
who can license you to show it.
Q. A teacher buys a single-user software
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. Is the district liable?
A. True. The district must enforce its
written policy, not just post it. Somebody needs to be monitoring
the network (and, it must be said, the stand-alone computers, too).
Unenforced policy cost one large district over $1 million.
Q. An elementary school transcribes the lyrics
from the album "Cats" and puts it on as the school mini-musical.
A teacher plays the music by ear on the piano and the students perform
every song. There is no admission charge. Is this is legal?
A. No. The copyright holder sells the
performance rights to schools in a very specific way. If you want
"Cats," buy the performance rights. Sell tickets if you have to.
Q. A school can only afford one copy of Kid
Pix. It loads this onto the library computer and all students and all classes
have access to it all day. The teachers copy and install Kid Pix Player
on their classroom computers to evaluate the student work. Is this
is permissible?
A. Yes. "Players" such as this are intended
for distribution and the program itself is never in simultaneous use.
Q. A student building a multimedia art project
uses copyrighted images of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings downloaded from
the Web. He submits this project to a multimedia competition honoring
classroom work and wins a prize for the school. Is this is covered
under fair use?
A. Yes. The competition was expressly designed
for classroom work by students. If the resulting projects were distributed
on CD-ROM or posted at a Web site, however, the copyrighted works could
cause a problem. 1, 2
References:
1 Fair Use Quiz
http://www.techlearning.com/content/speak/articles/questions.html
2 Fair Use Answers
http://www.techlearning.com/content/speak/articles/answers.html