COPYRIGHTLAWS

The first copyright law was signed by

President George

Washington on May 31, 1790

•Using someone else's work without obtaining the copyright owner's permission.

What is copyright infringement?

•Copyright is a set of federal laws that grant authors (or creators) the exclusive right to benefit from their creations. Meaning--it protects them from others using their work.

What is copyright?

Copyright begins… at the moment an author

puts his idea in a tangible (anything other

than an idea) form.

• Tells who owns copyright and date first published

• Location of copyright notice • An author is protected…copyright notice or not!

Copyright Notice

•Reproduction (making copies)•Adaptation (variations or modified)

•Distribution•Public performance •Public display

Rights protected by copyright

What can be copyrighted?

• 1. Original• 2. Creative• 3. Fixed (meaning it can be an idea in your head)

• Photos• Stories/books• Illustrations/drawings• Cartoons• Advertisements• Art work• Computer programming• Sound recordings/music

Copyright can protect:

•Ideas•Facts•Works whose copyright has expired which then enter the public domain. Anything created before 1923 can now be used because their copyright has expired.

Copyright does not protect:

Not protected:Some original, creative works in a fixed

form are not protected under copyright. We can use them without

permission from the author.

•Works created in the public domain•Expiration – 70 years after author’s

death•Government documents

FAIR USEAllows for the use of limited amounts of

copyrighted works for important purposes like

1. News reporting2. Commentaries

3. Critiques4. Education

5. Parody (making fun of something ex. Scary Movie)

Courts make their judgments on fair usage by answering a set of questions, called the four fair use factors:

• 1. What is the character of the use?• 2. What is the nature of the work to be used?• 3. How much of the work will you use?• 4. What is the effect of the use on the potential market value (will it

cause the creator to lose money from sales) of the original work.

• Teachers Not too often and not too much of the

work• Students

Can include images, sounds and videos in projects as long as it’s not too much

of the work

Teachers and students have special rights when in an educational

setting

PORTION LIMITATIONS

Photographs or Illustrations

• No more than five by the same photographer without permission.

Music

• 10% up to 30 seconds (whichever is less) of a song or musical

presentation.

Video (for integration into multimedia or video projects)

• 10% up to 3 minutes (whichever is less) of copyrighted videotapes,

DVDs, encyclopedias on CD-ROM, etc.

Video (for viewing)

• Must be used in a classroom “dedicated to face-to-face instruction.”

• Should be instructional, not for entertainment or reward

Text Material• Poem – less than 250 words

• Up to 250 words of a poem with > 2500 words

• One chart, picture, diagram, graph, cartoon or picture per book,

newspaper, etc.• Articles, stories or essays less than

2,500 words• Two pages from a picture book with

less than 2,500 words

Text Material

• Teachers may make multiple copies for classroom use

• Students may incorporate text into projects

• Only one copy per student• Don’t create anthologies

• “Consumables” such as workbooks may not be copied

• Images, sound and video may be downloaded for student projects and

teacher lessons• Web to Web – NOT OK without

permission• Links to resources can be posted

Internet