Fair use scenario - Kathy and the IWB

In a continuing series of scenarios that explore educational fair use issues. You comments are most welcome.

Third grade teacher Kathy was one of the lucky ones in the school who has an interactive white board installed in her classroom. As she experiments with the equipment and software, she is finding that many of the activities in her reading series work well as interactive lessons. Kathy has been scanning parts of the series' student workbook for use with with IWB software.

1. What is the copyrighted material? Who owns it?
2. Does the use of the work fall under fair use guidelines? Is the use transformational in nature? Can this be considered "educational" use?
3. What is your level of comfort in helping create such a product? Are there any changes or limits you might like to see that would make you more comfortable with this project?

Your level of comfort with this use of copyrighted materials: High 5 4 3 2 1 Low

You comments are most welcome.

Provocative statements from Remix

I am happily reading Lawrence Lessig's newest book, Remix: Making art and commerce thrive in the hybrid economy. I'm about a quarter of the way through it (Location 1271 on my Kindle to be exact), generously "clipping" as I go along. Here are a few of Lessig's many statements that challenged me:

Now I worry about the effect this war [on copyright piracy] is having upon our kids. What is this war doing to them? Whom is it making them? How is it changing how they think about normal, right-thinking behavior?

What does it mean to a society when a whole generation is raised as criminals?

Even the good become pirates in a world where the rules seem absurd.

The freedom to quote, and to build upon, the words of others is taken for granted by everyone who writes.

Whether justified or not, the norms governing these forms of expression [music and video] are far more restrictive than the norms governing text.

But what happens when writing with film (or music, or images, or every other form of “professional speech” from the twentieth century) becomes as democratic as writing with text?

Text is today’s Latin. It is through text that we elites communicate (look at you, reading this book). For the masses, however, most information is gathered through other forms of media: TV, film, music, and music video. These forms of “writing” are the vernacular of today. They are the kinds of "writing" that matters most to most.

This last comment looks like pretty good ammo for my "post-literate society" observations!

As always, these sorts of statements are best read in context. Pirate it, steal it, buy it, borrow it, or check it out from your library. What options!

Fair Use Scenarios

Applying fair use reasoning is about reaching a level of comfort, not memorizing a specific set of rules. Hobbs, Jaszi, and Aufderheide, "10 Common Misunderstandings About Fair Use."

It's long been my contention that you can't "teach" values. The best someone can do is create situations that help people define or refine their own values derived from information, conversation and reflection.

To this end, I've always used "scenarios" anytime I work with others on questions of ethics (and online safety). Scenarios form the heart of my book Learning Right from Wrong in the Digital Age.

The quote above from the professors at the Temple University Media Education Lab strikes me as great reason that some new scenarios need to be written that deal with fair use and copyright. Can such scenarios help librarians, teachers and students reach "a level of comfort" using copyrighted materials within fair use guidelines?

Here's what one* might look like:

The PTO at Johnson Middle School is creating a "video yearbook" for students and families that document the school year. One parent wants to add a few news clips from network television and excerpts from popular songs and movies of the year along with the original video of school activities and events. "We want our children to remember not just what happened in school this year, but what happened in society," she opines. The PTO will sell the videos for just enough to cover the cost of production and fund a class field trip.

1. What is the copyrighted material? Who owns it?

2. Does the use of the work fall under fair use guidelines? Is the use transformational in nature? Can this be considered "educational" use?

3. What is your level of comfort in helping create such a product? Are there any changes or limits you might like to see that would make you more comfortable with this project?

OK, this is sort of the same old, same old. But here is what is exciting...

In visiting with Jim Ulsh, Director of Student Publishing at ProQuest at the SLJ Leadership Summit at breakfast this morning, we talked about putting these scenarios online and allow readers to vote on their "level of comfort" with particular uses of copyrighted materials. (OK, the idea was Jim's, but I am still taking credit.)

What do you think? Would this be a valuable resource? How might the idea be improved? Any particularly knotty situations on fair use that scenarios should be written?

OK, I'm going back now to paying attention to the panel discussion I'm attending.

* Links to additional scenarios created

• Fair use scenario - Miguel and the DVD
• Fair Use Scenarios - Ms Nickie and the movie
• Fair use scenario - Tony's podcasts
• Fair Use Scenario: Broadcasting Obama
• Fair use scenario - Kathy and the IWB
• Fair use scenario - Mr. Opus and the digital cameras
• Fair use scenario - Ms DaVinci and the wiki
• Fair Use Scenario: Gloria's audio recordings
• Fair use scenario: Doug's digitizing strategy
• Fair Use Scenarios - Tunes and YouTube
• Fair use scenario - Mr. Jones and YouTube
• Fair Use Scenarios - Lucy's History Day Project