Bruce Girrell on thu 7 sep 00
Anji Henderson wrote:
>I have seen many worksheet papers come from my son's
>school that are photo copied and given to each
>student.. Is this OK??
Here's a url that should help you out:
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/
As you can see from the url, it is from Stanford University. Good enough =
for
me.
I copied a relevant portion of one of the links from this page. Note
especially the first bulleted item, which would seem to place your teache=
r's
usage squarely within fair use. However, two paragraphs later, they give =
an
instance where a court ruled differently.
Whenever I copy something from another, I place a notation around it
recognizing the copyright of the original and indicating that I believe t=
hat
I am copying it in the spirit of fair use, as I will below:
I. Fair Use for Teaching and Research
The "fair use" doctrine allows limited reproduction of copyrighted works =
for
educational and research purposes. The relevant portion of the copyright
statue provides that the "fair use" of a copyrighted work, including
reproduction "for purposes such as criticism, news reporting, teaching
(including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research" =
is
not an infringement of copyright. The law lists the following factors as =
the
ones to be evaluated in determining whether a particular use of a
copyrighted work is a permitted "fair use," rather than an infringement o=
f
the copyright:
=95 the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is o=
f a
commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
=95 the nature of the copyrighted work;
=95 the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the
copyrighted work as a whole, and
=95 the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the
copyrighted work.
Although all of these factors will be considered, the last factor is the
most important in determining whether a particular use is "fair." Where a
work is available for purchase or license from the copyright owner in the
medium or format desired, copying of all or a significant portion of the
work in lieu of purchasing or licensing a sufficient number of "authorize=
d"
copies would be presumptively unfair. Where only a small portion of a wor=
k
is to be copied and the work would not be used if purchase or licensing o=
f a
sufficient number of authorized copies were required, the intended use is
more likely to be found to be fair.
A federal appeals court recently decided an important copyright fair use
case involving coursepacks. In Princeton University Press, et.al. v.
Michigan Document Services, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circu=
it
concluded that the copying of excerpts from books and other publications =
by
a commercial copy service without the payment of fees to the copyright
holders to create coursepacks for university students was not fair use. T=
he
size of the offending excerpts varied from 30 percent to as little as 5
percent of the original publications. Although the opinion in this case i=
s
not binding in California, it is consistent with prior cases from other
courts, and there is a reasonable likelihood that the California federal
courts would reach a similar conclusion on similar facts.
Where questions arise, we suggest that you consult the guidelines for
classroom copying and other available source material available on the fa=
ir
use web site, cited above. Please note that the guidelines are intended t=
o
state the minimum, not the maximum, extent of the fair use doctrine. Thus=
,
just because your use is not within the guidelines, it is it not necessar=
ily
outside the scope of fair use. In the absence of a definitive conclusion,
however, if the proposed use deviates from the guidelines, you should
consider obtaining permission to use the work from the copyright owner...
Some photocopying services will obtain copyright permission and add the
price of the royalties, if any, to the price of the materials. A request =
to
copy a copyrighted work should generally be sent to the permission
department of the publisher of the work. Permission requests should conta=
in
the following:
=95 Title, author, and/or editor, and edition
=95 Exact material to be used, giving page numbers or chapters
=95 Number of copies to be made
=95 Use to be made of the copied materials
=95 Form of distribution (classroom, newsletter, etc.)
=95 Whether the material is to be sold
Bruce "and you can quote me on that" Girrell
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