Fair Use Guideline
Documents and Resources that deal with the Fair Use Guidelines for Educational Multimedia
Copyright Code of Conduct for Members of CCUMC
Fair Use Guidelines for Educational Multimedia
Related Documents and Links for Educators
The Fair Use Guidelines for Educational Multimedia document includes the non-legislative report and letters of support from Bruce Lehman, Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks, and Marybeth Peters, Register of Copyrights at the Library of Congress. The following items provide further assistance in understanding the guidelines and their background.
- How These Guidelines Help Educators
- Summary Index to Usable Portions of Fair Use Guidelines provides a quick reference to the amounts of copyrights works recommended for fair use in multimedia projects by the Guidelines.
- Overview of the Educational Multimedia Fair Use Guidelines is a PowerPoint presentation that is made available to you as a master, which you may customize under your own name and institution. Please give attribution to deg farrelly and Stan Diamond (who developed the original presentation) and Don Rieck (who added additional material). View PowerPoint presentation [PDF file] | Download PowerPoint presentation
- Videotapes available from the CCUMC Executive Office
- Fair Use Guidelines for Educational Multimedia: The Final Document and Its Implementation. VHS videotape of the February 20, 1997, PBS/ALSS videoconference produced by CCUMC. Covers content of the new guidelines, the endorsement and Congressional validation process, implementation at the school and college level, including faculty and staff training. $275, including shipping.
- Multimedia Fair Use Guidelines: The Educational Gateway to the Information Age. VHS videotape of the September 21, 1995, PBS/ALSS videoconference produced by CCUMC. Presents details of the draft of the fair use guidelines and employs a series of vignettes to help describe the issues around multimedia fair use. $225, including shipping.
Other Guidance in Applying Copyright Law
On November 2nd, 2002, the "Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization Act", part of the larger Justice Reauthorization legislation (H.R. 2215), was signed into law by President Bush. It now becomes integrated into the appropriate sections of copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code). TEACH goes a long way toward placing distance learning students on a par with those in the classroom. The law has certain limitations, however, and obliges qualifying institutions to rigorously promote and enforce copyright protection measures. CCUMC will be preparing an in-depth commentary on TEACH's provisions in the future. In the meantime, other useful documents for considering the impact of TEACH are the following:
- http://www.ala.org/washoff/teach.html - The American Library Association's interpretation of TEACH
- ftp://ftp.loc.gov/pub/thomas/cp107/sr031.txt - The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's report accompanying the original TEACH bill, with interpretive commentary
Reproduction of Copyrighted Works by Educators and Librarians (http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ21.pdf) This booklet, Circular 21, from the Library of Congress Copyright Office contains useful information on exclusive rights in copyrighted works, fair use, reproduction by libraries and archives, liability for infringement, and guidelines for off-air recording of broadcast programming for educational purposes.
University of Texas System’s Using the Four Factor Fair Use Test (http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/copypol2.htm#test) - Provides excellent guidance for considering the four applicable factors in applying the copyright law’s fair use provision in any situation. This web page also includes UT System’s own official “rules of thumb” for different applications of fair use in coursepaks, distance learning, image archives, reserves, etc.
University of Maryland Center for Intellectual Property's The (c) Primer (http://www-apps.umuc.edu/primer/enter.php) - “An online, interactive tutorial on copyright basics […] to assist educating faculty, staff and students about copyright principles and compliance”.
CENDI Copyright Task Group’s Frequently Asked Questions About Copyright (http://www.cendi.gov/publications/04-8copyright.html) - CENDI is an interagency cooperative of scientific and technical information managers from 9 federal agencies and the national libraries. Taking an “operations perspective”, the FAQ can “be used to educate librarians, information center staff, publications staff and agency authors about copyright”. However, it is “unique in its focus on copyright issues that affect federal government information dissemination”.
Laura Gasaway's When Works Pass Into the Public Domain (http://www.unc.edu/%7Eunclng/public-d.htm) -Detailed copyright duration chart that covers all the variables.
IUPUI Copyright Management Center’s Fair Use Checklist (http://www.copyright.iupui.edu/checklist.htm) - Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis provides another useful tool for reviewing and evaluating a potential fair use application of copyrighted material.