Index of course materials Course designed by Gail Gruber, WNMU, Silver City, NM return to syllabus

Ethics

Teachers must work ethically in order to require the same of their students. Ignorance is NOT a defense. Read the following, and follow the Links, and bring up any issues you wish to discuss in your email to me.

The information in the following paragraphs is from Are You Obeying Copyright Laws? By Judy Salpeter in Technology and Learning, May/June, 1992.

If auditors paid your district a surprise visit tomorrow, what would they find?
Illegally copied software?
Unauthorized videotapes?
Widespread confusion about how scanners, digitizers, and other multimedia equipment may be used legally?

Know the Law

Title 17 of the United States Code contains the law concerning this issue:

Section 102 - defines copyrightable materials
Section 106 - outlines five basic rights of copyright owners
Section 107 - explains fair use
Section 108 - rights of libraries and archives
Section 110 - performance and display rights
Section 117 - (amended December, 1980) duplication of software

Owners of a copyright have the following five basic rights:

The right to reproduce (make copies)
The right to create "derivative works" (adaptations, altered versions)
The right to sell or distribute to the public
The right to perform the work in public
The right to display the work in public

The following considerations must be made when deciding if you fit in the Fair Use clause:

Consider the purpose and character of the use.
Consider the nature of the copyrighted work.
Consider the amount and substantiality of the part used in relation to the work as a whole.
Consider the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Copying Books and Periodicals

Brevity - a complete poem of less than 250 words, an excerpt less than 1000 words or less than 10%, one illustration.
Spontaneity - too little time to get for all.
Cumulative effect - used for one course only, no more than 9 instances of multiple copying are permitted in one term.

Music Copying

Duplication in an emergency temporarily to replace purchased copies (ex. Night of performance).
Excerpting small portions for non-performance instructional purposes.
Editing or simplifying printed copies which have been purchased (fundamentals not distorted).
Making single copy of a sound recording owned by the teacher for lesson or exam.

Off-Air Videotape

A recorded program is to be used no more than twice (the second time for reinforcement purposes only) within the first ten school days following the broadcast.
After that, it can be used by teachers only for evaluation purposes and must be erased at the end of 45 calendar days following the broadcast.
No program may be taped a second time by/for a given teacher even if rebroadcast.

"Educational Purposes"

Ask permission when possible
It is important to consider the conditions under which the works might be performed for others (instructional rather than entertainment).
Schools should be cautious about assemblies, "film festivals," or other public performances (of teacher- or student-created works) if copyrighted materials have been used and the purpose is to entertain the audience.

Setting Policy: Suggestions

Begin with the school board for total support in coming up with a detailed copyright policy.
Have each employee sign statement indicating that he or she will not engage in illegal copying.
Post the rules.
Spread the word.

Copying Software is the same as shoplifting. $2.8 billion dollars was lost to software piracy in the United States in 1997.

Levels of software copyright:

1. Public domain

distributed free
not copyrightable
not supported or under warranty by the author
not as well developed

2. Shareware

developed for sale on the honor system
more reliable than public domain
often supported by the author

3. Licensed software

registered for your use
full support
sometimes allow teachers to take a copy home for use in lesson preparation (read your license)
you are legally bound by the license conditions

Ethics Links

Jamie McKenzie gives the following link for what he calls the "New Plagiarism."

http://www.fromnowon.org/may98/cov98may.html

SafeKids.com chart pertaining to online safety

http://www.safekids.com

Bellingham (WA) School District copyright policy

http://www.bham.wednet.edu/policies.htm

Software Publishers Association

http://www.spa.org

An article from Microsoft on Setting Boundaries

http://www.microsoft.com/education/k12/articles/clcmar97.asp

The Copyright Website: This site endeavors to provide real world, practical and relevant copyright information of interest to infonauts, netsurfers, webspinners, content providers, musicians, appropriationists, activists, infringers, outlaws, and law abiding citizens.

http://www.benedict.com/

Copyright Law for Creative Teachers

By way of introduction, I used to be a practicing attorney and worked in areas of copyright. But I am not providing legal advice in this message -- only some basic information.

Copyright basics: Copyright protects original tangible creative works. There are 5 copyright rights -- the right to copy, distribute, modify, perform, and display the work. You can transfer any of these rights by licensing someone else the right to copy, distribute, etc.

A work is considered in the "public domain" if the copyright has expired, it was created by the government, or the creator specifically has placed the work in the public domain. Posting a work on the Internet does NOT mean that you have placed that work in the public domain. This is unfortunately a common misperception. However, there is an assumption if you have placed your work on the Internet you have granted a license to anyone accessing your work that allows that person to make a personal copy of your work.

It is important to consider why there are laws the protect copyright rights. Copyright laws are designed to benefit both the creator and society. The creator benefits by being able to control how what he or she has created is used and to receive compensation from that creation. Society benefits by having more creative works created. Some folks argue that everything on the Internet is, or should be, free. What these folks really are saying is that there should be no respect demonstrated for the rights of the creator and there really is a "free lunch."

The key issue that your question raises is: Who owns the materials? This question is important for all educators who are involved in creating Internet content. If a teacher is hired to teach children and on his or her own time creates Internet educational materials, then the teacher has, or should be the one who has, the exclusive rights to the materials created. On the other hand, if a teacher has been hired to create educational materials for a school, district or other entity, then the school, district, or other entity has the exclusive rights. Of course, then we have the gray areas, where a teacher's primary activity is teaching, but during instructional preparation times and using district resources, the teacher creates materials. Here, it could be argued that the teacher did use district resources to support this creation, so the district should have some rights.

Now, what is *really* needed is a policy that clarifies this situation *before* the issues emerge. But generally, most folks can sort out these things even if there is no policy by just focusing on what is the fair and right thing to do given the circumstances.

So the first thing you need to do is to sort out the ownership issues.

Assuming that the teachers are considered to have ownership rights and they are willing to have the school/district license their materials for others to use, then it is necessary to figure out how to split the income. One way that you can look at this is to split the income into 3 "pots" The first pot is dedicated to paying for the costs of distributing the materials, the second pot goes to the school/district, and the third pot goes to the teacher/creator. (You could also have a temporary 4th pot to pay off any expenses involved in the creation of the materials.) If you do the division like this, what I would recommend (since you apparently have some creative teachers) is for the school/district to dedicate the money received from licensing these materials to support the costs of creating more materials. You will likely not get any arguments from your teachers on this approach. :-)

I hope this helps.

Advice for all teachers: If you are a teacher who is creating or thinking about creating web content be sure you get a copy of your district policy and figure out what your rights are. Then write up what it is that you are intending to do and what rights you think you will have and provide this written document to your superviser to make sure that the district does not have a different impression of the policy than you. Be sure you address when you will be creating these materials (instructionl prep time or on your own time) and any use of district resources.

Also, everyone should watch out for involvement with companies offering to provide "free" class, school, or district web sites. In virtually all of the agreements with these companies I have seen, the company itself will claim either the copyright to the materials posted on their web site or a royalty-free license to distribute the material any way they wish -- without providing for any income for the creator. These sites are a rip-off!

Nancy

--
Nancy Willard
Project Director, Responsible Netizen
Center for Advanced Technology in Education
College of Education, 5214 University of Oregon
Eugene, Oregon 97403-5214
541-346-2895 (office) 541-346-6226 (fax)
Web Page: http://netizen.uoregon.edu
E-mail: nwillard@oregon.uoregon.edu

Index of course materials Course designed by Gail Gruber, WNMU, Silver City, NM return to syllabus