Copyright for Educators

As technologies emerge, the U.S. copyright laws can be a little confusing to navigate, especially if you compound issues with, say, a global pandemic and a massive need for student and family access! However, it's critical to follow legal practice and to model ethical standards for students. Recent violations in our state have had serious consequences.

Compiled list of read-aloud publisher permissions during Covid-19 - from School Library Journal

Culture of Citation

It's important to cite sources - or give credit to sources, for all quotations, graphics, key ideas, and other content.
Modeling this for students in our presentations and handouts encourages this practice.

It is not so critical that you follow a particular format correctly (if you are curious, here is a guide to APA and one to MLA), but making an effort to credit the work goes a long way.

If our students are in the habit of recording the author/artist's last name, and title of the work, that's great.
We would also want them to capture direct web links to websites, blogs, online articles, and other content.
For books, include the name of the publishing company and copyright year, in addition to page numbers for direct quotes.

What are the Copyright rules? What is Fair Use?

Generally speaking, don't reproduce content or publish it for audiences outside your classroom without permission or payment.

The concept of Fair Use for educators, which means you might not need permission or payment, involves four factors; just because content is used in a school does not necessarily mean it falls under the Fair Use provision. These four factors are:

1) Its effect on potential sales - will your use diminish the content creator's economic opportunity?
2) Whether it's transformative - have you used this content in a new way, instead of lifting it as-is? (Satires and parodies can be transformative, as can fan fiction, memes, or other content.)
3) The amount of the work you use, and whether you use the "heart" of the work
4) The nature of the work, and whether it is already published

Source: U.S. Copyright Office (2020). Retrieved from: https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/more-info.html

(see what I did there?)

If you want to find out more about Fair Use, here is an overview from Edutopia for teachers.