How the Fair Use Guidelines for Educational Multimedia Help Educators
Posted April 25th, 2007 by rccox
- The Fair Use Guidelines for Educational Multimedia (**link to the document**) provide educators reasonable assurance that they will not be sued if they abide by the precepts outlined in the document. While guidelines do not have the force of law, they help define a "safe harbor" in that they represent a negotiated consensus about fair use. Most of the major U.S. owners of copyrighted material helped to produce these guidelines and many have endorsed them.
- The portion and time limitations help faculty easily identify whether using a certain copyrighted work in their multimedia program is fair. Educators do not have to conduct a four factor fair use analysis unless they wish to go beyond the limitations.
- Neither the Copyright Act, nor previous fair use guidelines, fully describe the new teaching methods of multimedia or remote instruction. The guidelines outline how faculty can incorporate various learning environments into their teaching.
- The guidelines help faculty and educators gain a better understanding of the extremely complex doctrine of fair use.
- The last section of the guidelines, "Important Reminders", alerts students and faculty about ways to protect their own work and safeguard the intellectual property of others as they create original educational multimedia resources.