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=Copyright Discussion=

Just getting the hang of this wiki stuff!! I really liked C.L.'s question about the videos, because I before this class was not informed or educated about copyrights at all. In my lesson plans I always used videos, without asking for permission, and most likely violating muliple copyright laws. Thank goodness for this class! My question is how do I find out if I'm copying something that is 10% or less of an excerpt? Is it just a judgement call, and what if I don't have access to the entire excerpt? I guess as I'm asking this I am answering it in my head with my own handout I made last week. Better to be safe than sorry and get permission. BF (Bailey Ferris)

I'm glad you are taking time to think this through! I guess you could only know if you are using 10% if you find the whole thing and do the math. If you can't find the whole thing and can't know the percentage, then you should ask. However, I don't think this is going to happen a lot. Ususally you can find the whole thing. AK

I've often wondered about showing videos in the classroom as it relates to copyright law. I understand that if you are showing the video to your class and you're not doing it for profit or entertainment, this is okay. Why, then, would a school librarian need to purchase a video with public performance rights? The ordering I've done this year has been of the regular video, because my budget won't accommodate paying for the expensive rights. Am I doing the legal thing? -C.L. (Catherine Lende)

Y es, you are doing the right thing if you are ordering videos for people to use in the classroom or to take home to watch.

This is a great link... scroll down past the bigbliogrpahy to get to the good stuff...

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Here's an example of something that isn't OK: The RAs here in the dorm check out movies in the library and have "movie nights" in the dorm. That does violate copyright and when I know they're doing that or I see they have done that, I just check in with the Dean of Students and she takes responsibility for purchasing public performance rights. On her budget that usually means they will be showing a little bit older movie -- not an Oscar __winner__ that just came out on dvd -- due to expense. It can get confusing, but what you are doing is clearly OK as long as the movies are being viewed in the classroom. If you're planning an extracurricular teen movie night at school, then you need public performance rights. AK

Ok, here's a question. One of the English teachers at our school is planning on having a movie night with her AP class in the library. What are the stipulations for showing full length, **rented** movies for a movie night? She said the class has created a list of movies that tied in with their curriculum but they didn't have time to watch during class. I really don't know what to tell her... S. C. (Samantha Cook)

When you rent a movie, that's for your own private use in your own home -- your rental agreement says so and usually the movie begins with a screen to that effect. For a public performance in a school library or public library, you need to go to the copyright clearance website from the lecture and enter the film.. you will most likely need to pay for rights. Public libraries have gotten better at this in recent years as they sometimes do get into trouble. AK

Generally speaking how much does it cost to pay for rights for a video? Or does it just depend on what your watching, becuase it seems to me by some of the comments that people have been saying is that budget is a big problem? BF

There's a wide range -- from $10 to a few hundred. Often, the older the movie, the lower the fee, but not always. Figure out what your budget is and then pick a movie that fits it. Good question AK

I see copy right violations everyday at the copy machine. The music teachers copy pages and pages of __sheet music__...I beleive this is a copyright violation. I beleive that teachers do not slow up and think about copyright violations they are making, they just assume that if it is fro eduaction, then itis okay. But is it our job to be the copyright police? TG

I don't think we are the copyright police. I think we are the copyright educators and that we can only do so much for teachers. However, we can set a tone of running a library that doesn't assist teachers in violations. Our copyright related responsibilities are higher for our students. The MT state standards require schools to teach ethical use of info -- that's in the library curriculum state standards.AK

I think one good way of doing this would be to make those handouts that we made for class and give them to someone that we notice is violating copyright laws, and also students and teachers that have comments. BF

I think that it would be okay based on the fact that it's related to their curriculum and it's still in a face-to-face environment with the teacher. It's not purely for entertainment and certainly not for profit. I hear you on the flagrant copyright violations that occur daily. I taught English for seven years and I know I violated copyright a lot by copying short stories for classes. It all comes down to budgets--we didn't have textbooks so our budget didn't accommodate buying short story anthologies in addition to all the novels and plays taught. Of course, this is not a valid excuse, but I know that's where the teachers are coming from. CL

When you take the time to ask for permission, lots of times you get it. Most of the people using the budget logic, would actually be able to do what they want to do anyway if they just ask. Plus, they can tell their students about the process and that would be modelling the ethical use of info. AK

On a related note, I just opened my April issue of //School Library Journal,//and there is an article about copyright as it relates to copying DVDs for the classroom. Renee Hobbs is petitioning the U.S. Copyright Office to allow teachers to take clips from DVDs to use in the classroom. Here's a link to the article: [] C.L.

Here is another question about the use of images. I just created a Prezi about building your own app, and I used images of popular apps that I took from the internet. Do I credit the page I took it from, Apple, or the original creator of the app? What if the app is made by someone and the art for it is made by someone else? For example, I pulled the Facebook app image off of a google search. Do I credit Mark Zuckerberg, the "creator" of Facebook, or someone else? SC

There isn't a guideline for that (I've looked!) so you get to use your best judgement. I've thought a lot about it actually because I used the logos from the tools we learned about in class on my moodle page. I want you to be able to recognize the logos when you go to these sites. I can't find the designers of the logos. Sometimes -- always probably, when a person creates a logo for the company, the ownership of that logo is transferred to the company and the original creator is no longer the copyright holder. This isn't a new arrangement. Once in a while, I write entries for encyclopedias. Sometimes, I get an author credit in the publication, but usually the deal is that facts on file or whoever, becomes the copyright holder of the content and I don't have an author credit. In the case of the encyclopedia, you cite the encyclopedia as the copyright holder. In the case of logos, I don't know. There hasn't been a case where an educator used a logo to teach students and a dispute arose. Logos aren't exactly in the public domain, but most companies want people to use them. So, I ended up just using them on the moodle page and not citing them because there isn't any info to cite really. This is the kind of thing that will be clarified for us all when a problem arises. AK

Wow, this is all really interesting stuff. I never thought of the logos being copyrighted. I know several of us, me included, copy and use the logos all the time. I suppose it will only be a matter of time until someone gets in trouble and then we will know how to cite and handle these issues. I agree with the earlier comments that it is our job to set an example of how to avoid violating copyright laws, especially to students. The handouts that we made would be very useful placed at every copy machine in the building. I agree that we are not the copyright police, but it is our duty to share information about the copyright laws and make it available. TG

I found a pdf that might be a bit helpful on the ALA website about showing full videos in a "face-to-face" setting that might clear up my earlier question about a teacher showing full films to her students. It sounds to me like it's ok as long as it's accompanied by instruction relating to the curriculum, provided that it is done face-to-face and not in an online classroom streaming to someone's home. Also, one of my assignments in another class requires that I take a lesson plan that has already been written and "'technofy" it. I was thinking about taking a plaigarism lesson and turning the assessment digital, such as students making a quick advertisement for classmates on the does and dont's when it comes to using the works of others. When plaigarism is talked about in your library, is it a pretty standard lecture-and-worksheet deal, or do you have some great ideas I could "borrow"? ;.) SC []

Thanks for posting the link to the ALA site, Samantha. That was a very helpful and clear explanation of the classroom exemption for showing videos. -CL

There are legal guidelines to follow when using video in your classroom. For the full discussion see the Library's copyright page on video recordings. See next box for Online Teaching video copyright guidelines. The face-to-face teaching exemption allows use of a copyrighted film in classroom teaching when **ALL** of the following conditions are met:
 * Performance or display of a copyrighted work occurs in a non-profit educational institution;
 * The performance or display of the copyrighted material occurs in the course of face-to-face teaching activities;
 * The performance or display of a work is by instructors or pupils in the course ;
 * The film/audiovisual material is related to the course;
 * The copyrighted work is performed or displayed in a classroom or other designated teaching space;
 * and In the case of an audiovisual work, the performance or display of individual images is given by a means of a copy that is lawfully made (e.g., purchased, rented, or borrowed from the library).
 * [] SC

F ace - to -face full length movies are fine in the classroom when it is directly related to curriculum, like showing Henry V to your high school english class. Reward movies are different -- especially when it's movie night that isn't during school hours. For something different I really like to do a quick lecture and then do a Q & A because college students get excited about asking the librarian all about unusual circumstances and you can't always exactly answer. They treat it as a sort of stump-the-librarian game, but it starts to click that there are guidelines, but there are many things that haven't been decided for sure in court. Then it starts to click that copyright compliance is less about avoiding getting into trouble and more about thinking things through and doing the right thing -- about honoring intellectual property. Also, opening myself up for crazy what-if questions that hardly ever happen makes me stay up on copyright and on the latest cases in the courts because, as much as they want to stump me, I don't want to be stumped! AK

I'm working with the freshmen English Language Arts class on a multigenre project where they create a video or scrapbook telling their life story (to accompany reading Alexie's //Aboslutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian//). As I create my own example video, I'm wondering if it's okay to take 30 second clips of songs from You Tube (through videos posted on Vevo) which I'm converting to MP3 and then inserting into my video. Is it only legal to use songs you have purchased digitally or own on CD, even if you're abiding by the 30 second clip rule? -CL