Copyright & Fair Use in Higher Ed

I recently attended a Sloan C webinar on the topic of Copyright & Fair Use in Higher Education. Linda K. Enghagen from University of Massachusetts at Amhurst facilitated. I would highly recommend this Sloan C webinar to anyone who teaches in higher ed. Take a look at the schedule for upcoming dates for the next one. http://sloanconsortium.org/institute/workshops/2014schedule

For copyright reasons, I can't share the booklet that accommodates the webinar, so I will summarize the basics for you in this blog post. My super nutshell summary falls into the following 3 questions that you need to ask yourself:

Do you own the copyright? If yes, you are good to go. If not, find out who does hold the copyright and get permission. Do you have permission to use this copyrighted material? If yes, great! If not, stop using it and investigate if you can get permission? Are you falling within the parameters of fair use? If yes, excellent! If not, stop what you are doing and adjust to fall within fair use or go get permission to use what you need.

Now certainly copyright and fair use can be quite complicated and confusing. However, as educators  it super important to understand copyright and fair-use so you and the university or college you work for does not get sued! You can't hide behind the cloak of ignorance either, that doesn't fly with the judge in court.
So what is an educator to do? Take an hour out of your time and review copyright law and the rules for fair use. Even better, take the Sloan C workshop, the time commitment for that is about 4 hours.

The basics of Fair Use
When determining if the material falls within fair use, the rules will look at all four criteria:

1. the purpose or character of the use
2. the nature of the copyrighted work
3. the amount and portion of the work as it relates to the whole work
4. how the portion used effects of market value of the copyrighted work

Download the fair-use checklist and keep it handy: http://www.usg.edu/images/copyright_docs/fair_use_checklist.pdf. Fair use applies to e-reserves as well. In other words you can't provide a substantial portion of a textbook so that students do not need to purchase it. That is where #4 comes into play and hurting copyright owner of sales.
Now, just because we are educators and it is assumable that we are using the material for 'educational purposes,' that doesn't exactly get us a free ticket for grabbing anything. The good news is that educational purposes does have some advantages though. Take a look at the Technology, Education, and Copyright Harmonization (TEACH) Act.

https://www.copyright.com/Services/copyrightoncampus/basics/teach.html
This specifically addresses online classrooms and allows for a wider range of latitude for streaming and digitizing permissions for use within a learning management system. 

Like I said, take some time review the links and resources on the topic of Copyright and Fair Use and educate yourself on the basics.

For more detailed information go to:
Try the fair use evaluator: http://librarycopyright.net/resources/fairuse/nature.php 


Copyright Clearance Center:
http://www.copyright.com/content/cc3/en/toolbar/education/get-the-facts.html 

Columbia University Libraries- Copyright Advisory Office
http://tinyurl.com/68xf6jy

Education World: The Educator's Guide to Copyright and Fair Use
http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/curr280.shtml