Copyright: Fair Use Practices for Students
Federal copyright laws protect the creative work of artists, musicians, writers, and photographers. “Fair Use” is a provision of U.S. copyright law that permits students and teachers to use portions of copyrighted materials for educational purposes. Consider the fair use guidelines below when creating your projects. Answering the four questions can help you determine how to use copyrighted material properly.
Criteria for Fair Use
1. What is the purpose and character of your use?
Nonprofit, educational, and personal uses are most likely to fall under the fair use category. Also at issue here is whether the copied material is being used to help create something new or simply being copied verbatim.
2. What is the nature of the copyrighted work?
Generally speaking, you have more leeway to copy factual works and published works than imaginative and unpublished works.
3. How much of the work are you using?
Fair use includes portion limitations. Less is always better. You may use music, video, and texts, but guidelines for these materials vary. A general guideline for a student multimedia project is that you can use 10 percent of a work, but not more
- 3 minutes of video
- 30 seconds of a song
- 5 photos from an artist’s collection
The videos and music you are copying from must be legally acquired.
4. What effect does the use have on the potential market for the work?
You may never distribute or sell your projects to mass audiences, and you may keep only two copies of the project. Be aware that federal law also maintains time limitations. You may keep your project for two years and must not harm the author or copyright holder’s profits. Always cite all your sources; the copyright holder of any material used in your class project must be
given proper credit. And be aware that these guidelines apply to material on Web (text, images, multimedia objects) which is protected under copyright law.
Students are subject to litigation if they do not follow these guidelines.
- Be careful. Copyright infringement is considered intellectual theft!
- Be sure to follow the 10% rule and document your sources carefully.
- You may be fined up to $100,000 for not following the Fair Use guidelines, even if you are unaware of these laws.
Seek Permission to Use
Remember, you can ask for, and in many cases, receive permission to use a whole song or extensive images if you make such a request to the copyright holder and keep proof of permission.