Post date: Nov 21, 2016 12:43:1 AM
Have you ever wondered if teachers can legally show a movie to their students without infringing on copyright laws? Or whether a school band has to pay royalties to the composer of a musical score if they charge admission for their spring concert? Or whether the drama club can put on a broadway musical without having to pay copyright fees?
Every teacher needs to know about how to use media in their classrooms and in extra curricular activities at school. This resource, written by Wanda Noel and Jordan Snell for the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC), provides clear legal guidance for educators on how to fairly use print and digital media -- video, audio, creative works, musical scores, written texts, photographs -- as part of their professional practice.
Important take-aways in the full document (which is only 29 pages long -- so it's worth reading it in full) include:
1. Teachers must be cognizant of the copyright status of resource materials in their possession. (p. 1)
2. Under the rules of fair dealing, teachers, instructors, professors, and staff members in nonprofit educational institutions may communicate and reproduce, in paper or electronic form, short excerpts from a copyright protected work for the purposes of research, private study, criticism, review, news reporting, education, satire, and parody. (p. 2)
3. A short excerpt means:
a. up to 10 per cent of a copyright-protected work (including a literary work, musical score, sound recording, and an audiovisual work);
b. one chapter from a book;
c. a single article from a periodical;
d. an entire artistic work (including a painting, print, photograph, diagram, drawing, map, chart, and plan) from a copyrightprotected work containing other artistic works;
e. an entire newspaper article or page;
f. an entire single poem or musical score from a copyrightprotected work containing other poems or musical scores;
g. an entire entry from an encyclopedia, annotated bibliography, dictionary, or similar reference work. (p. 3).
4. Teachers can show copyrighted media works (e.g., movies) for educational purposes if the showing takes place on the premises of an educational institution. Importantly...
a. The showing must be for an audience consisting primarily of students, instructors, or persons directly responsible for setting a curriculum.
b. The showing must be for educational or training purposes.
c. The showing must not be for profit.
d. The copy shown must not be infringing or the person responsible for the performance has no reasonable grounds to believe that it is an infringing copy. (p. 16)
For more information about how to use media resources legally in your classroom, please read the full document:
Noel, W. & Snell, J. (2016). Copyright Matters! Some key questions and answers for teachers (4th ed.). Council of Ministers of Education, Canada, Canadian School Boards Association & Canadian Teachers' Federation. Retrieved from http://cmec.ca/publications/lists/publications/attachments/291/copyright_matters.pdf