THE COPYRIGHT LAW

and Fair Use Guidelines for

Educational Multimedia
COPYRIGHT LAW
Laws designed to protect intellectual
property rights and provide potential
monetary rewards for inventiveness and hard
work.
The ease with which material can be copied,
digitized, manipulated, incorporated into a
presentation and delivered to a mass market has
prompted a concern about the adequacy of
copyright laws as they apply to the multimedia
industry.

COPYRIGHT ACT OF 1976
Protects certain kinds of original works of
authorshipwhether published or
unpublished

Protects works fixed in any tangible form of
expression
THE COPYRIGHT LAW COVERS . . .
Literary works (books, poems, software)
Musical works, including any accompanying words
Dramatic works, including any accompanying music
Pantomimes and choreographic works
Pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works
Motion pictures and other audiovisual works
Sound recordings
Architectural works


DOES NOT COVER . . .
Ideas
Facts
Titles
Names
Short phrases
Blank forms
TRADEMARKS & COPYRIGHTS ARE
DIFFERENT
A trademark is a name, symbol, or other
device identifying a product
Trademarks are not covered by the copyright
law, but by the Trademark Law
Trademarks are frequently marked with a
registered trademark symbol--
Example: Coca Cola , Nike
HOW DO I OBTAIN A COPYRIGHT?
You automatically own the copyright to any
work you create as soon as it is fixed in a
tangible medium.
You can indicate ownership by using the
expression copyright by or the symbol.
You can register for ownership with the U.S.
Copyright office; this does provide you with
additional legal benefits.
EXCEPTION TO OWNERSHIP
In the case of works made for hire, the
employer and not the employee is considered
to be the author.
Section 101 of the copyright law defines a
work made for hire as:
A work prepared by an employee within the scope
of his or her employment; or
A work specially ordered or commissioned for use

RIGHTS OF THE OWNER
You have the right to:
Reproduce the work
Distribute copies of the work
Make a derivative work (make copies or
changes from the original)
Publicly perform the work
Put the work on public display
If you perform any of these tasks and are
NOT the copyright owner, you are infringing
on their rights.
Example: copying software, sharing MP3 files,
photocopying, uploading materials to websites,
etc.
WHAT OPTIONS DO WE HAVE?
Fair Use Guidelines for Educational
Multimedia
Public Domain
Royalty-Free Products
FAIR USE GUIDELINES
Portions, or in some cases the entirety, of
copyrighted works may be used

Legitimate uses include criticism, comment,
news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or
research.

FAIR USE FACTORS
For use to fall under the Fair Use guidelines,
the following factors must be considered:
Purpose and character of usecommercial or
non-profit educational purposes
The nature of the copyrighted work
The amount and substantiality of the portion used
The effect of the use upon the potential market
value of the product
FAIR USE LIMITATIONS
Motion media 10% or 3 minutes, whichever is less
Text material 10% or 1000 words, whichever is less
Music 10% or 3 minutes, whichever is less
Photographs /
Illustrations
5 images per photographer/ artist; 10% or 15
images from a collective work
CREDIT YOUR SOURCES
Educators and students are reminded to
credit the sources and display the copyright
notice and copyright ownership information . . .
.


PUBLIC DOMAIN
Property rights that belong to the community at
large, are unprotected by copyright or patent,
and are subject to use by anyone
You should have documentation that the item is in
public domain before using it
Anything published before 1923
Anything created by the U.S. Federal Government
Public domain is not the same as freeware or shareware:
Freeware: software that is provided without a charge
Shareware: copyrighted software that is available free of charge on
a trial basis
ROYALTY-FREE
Prepared material that can be usedlegally
without paying a fee to the artist, publishing
company, etc.
Some royalty-free material is available at no
cost; however, most material must be
purchased.
Royalty-free doesnt necessarily mean
FREEyou may have to pay for it.
REMEMBER . . .
Credit your sources!

When you create a work, you own the rights to that
work.

Creating projects for the classroom is not
necessarily the same as creating projects for
competitionknow the guidelines.




REMEMBER . . .
It is permissible to download limited amounts of
material for use in a student project, but you cant
download material from one web site and post it to
yours.

Know that royalty-free doesnt mean unlimited
rightsbut it does expand your options

There is a difference in personal use, educational
use, and the workplace.