I am working on a curriculum guide with a group of teachers. We are going to use this curriculum in 36 advisory classrooms. I read this . I need clarification.
Does fair use apply to 36 teachers?
We are not going to use an entire body of work. We would like to use bits and pieces .
There are several other things we want to use as well.
The curriculum guide would not be used outside of our building.
We were assigned to this task 8 days ago and we need to have it completed by August 9 or 10. Waiting for written permission would, imo, be unwise. Instead, we would not use the material.
Thanks.
This is not a legal opinion, sorry. But I’ve had to spend enough time closely examining copyright issues that I figured I could point you in the right direction.
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If you are in doubt as to the legality of what you’re doing, the safest thing to do is to contact the holder of the copyright.
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Unfortunately, if you do that, it will probably take time, and if their lawyer is involved, they’ll tend to say “no” automatically.
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“Bits and pieces” usually means a maximum of a couple hundred words. If you’re copying a good part of the entire point of the copyrighted document, you’re basically taking the whole value of it.
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When I see that you’re planning to distribute this in 36 classrooms, I see a red flag. Put yourself in the shoes of the copyright holder. Would you want hundreds of students accessing your material without compensation?
I appreciate your response. I agree with your red flag. My understanding is that fair use applies to a single teacher using copyrighted material for the students in their class. The teachers I am working with are divided on what we can and can’t use. I suppose I should ask our legal department to look into this. The time constraint is the problem.
Should I assume that producing 800 copies of a document for use in 36 advisory classes would not be considered “fair use”?
We would be making 36 copies for a 3 ring binder / curriculum guide. Naturally, the teachers that were issued the curriculum guide would assume that they could legally copy the material. Does this make a difference?
If the publisher normally deals with the education marketplace, they will have a policy and be able to give you an immediate answer. In many cases, they will provide reprints of the material for a nominal fee. Call the publisher.
We contacted Franklin /Covey by phone and email but have not had a response yet. This was three days ago so we may hear soon.
If I understand “fair use” correctly, it depends on the size of the portion of the material copied, the number of copies made, and how it is redistributed.
Considering the situation I have described, would it be legal for us to copy these copyrighted materials?
My understanding on a college level would be that a professor could make a copy of these documents available to students, say, in the reserve reading room, but not make copies for all the students in a class.
Based on that, making 800 copies for 36 classrooms would surely be beyond the bounds.
But IANAL, just a writer.
I also see red flags all over this. Surely you have time before these materials would actually be used in class. Wait until you hear from Franklin/Covey before doing anything.
BTW, you couldn’t even copy that whole page onto this site without the mods taking it off, which should say something.
The red flags are waving for sure. According to this cite we are going to have to either get permission or not include the material.
The people that we have heard from so far, other school systems, were very generous and actually seemed excited that we wanted to use their stuff. I am doubting the publishers will be so generous. Now I understand why curriculum guides are so expensive.
We are planning a lesson about plagiarism. We had several incidents last year. Based on the lack of teacher awareness concerning this issue, I think we should offer a block of instruction for faculty as well. :eek:
I appreciate the feedback.
What I am about to say applies only in Australia, so you will need to take into account that although our copyright laws are similar to those in the US, they are not exactly the same.
The course notes for my degree include whole chapters of some works, and they HAVE been reproduced under the “fair use” provisions of the Copyright Act.
The course notes in themselves are a copyrighted work which can only be distributed to students enrolled in the course and which cannot be reproduced or transmitted by any means.
Each section of the course notes has a cover page which clearly states the origin of the reproduced work and also states “This copy made at Griffith University for purposes of research or study under PartVB of the Copyright Act on 1/3/2001”.
In addition to that, each section of the course notes (even if that section has reproduced only a couple of pages of a chapter of the book) includes the full bibliography for the chapter from which the copy was made.
In short, while it’s certainly possible to reproduce substantial parts of a work for purposes deemed “legitimate” under copyright legislation, the purposes are very clearly defined and there are many requirements which must be met in order for such reproduction to be legal.
You most definitely need legal guidance for this one, even if you get written permission to use the work, that permission will come with conditions which must be strictly adhered to.
And please remember that no amount of correct attribution mitigates copyright infringement.
I must say that I’m surprised by the small time frame in which you’re hoping to get this resolved.
It doesn’t sound like fair use applies. There are just too many copies being distributed, and it looks like you’re taking too large a portion. A few paragraphs, maybe, but if you’re using an entire article, you’re on shaky ground.