How
Fair Use Supports Digital Learning
In Renee Hobbs’ book Copyright Clarity: How
Fair Use Supports Digital Learning we learn that there is a lot of
misinformation in schools when it comes to copyright law. Hobbs describes three
types of understanding of copyright laws by educators;
See No Evil - teachers who believe they can use any
material for any purpose, ignorance (of copyright law) is bliss.
Close the door – when teachers & students are
discouraged from sharing their work outside of the school building.
Hyper-comply – when teachers are fearful of copyright
law and far more restrictive than the actual law states.
This
misunderstanding of the copyright law by educators hinders the quality of
materials produced by teachers and students.
Hobbs expands on two points to
clarify the confusion over copyright law. First, most people believe that
copyright law is there solely to protect the owners’ rights for profit and
control. When in reality the U.S. Constitutions says that promoting the spread
of knowledge and innovation are the purpose of copyright. This provision of
intellectual property rights was included in our Constitution because our
Founders believed that a free society would benefit from encouraging the
development of new ideas and information. Second is the power of fair use. Fair
use of a copyright is not an infringement of copyright, but there are certain
factors involved when determining fair use;
•
The
purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial
nature or is for nonprofit educational purpose;
•
the
nature of the copyrighted work;
•
the
amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted
work as a whole; and
•
the
effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted
work.
All
this to say that each individual case is going to be different and a blanket
statement won’t cover it, fair use requires reasoning and judgement. Hobb says
it best here: “It is designed to ensure that the concept of fair use is
responsive to the wide variety of contexts in which people use other people’s
copyrighted work in the development of their own work.”
Another helpful point Hobbs makes is
understanding transformative use. If a copyrighted material is used in a
transformative way, taking a film clip, or music clip, art, whatever and
transforming it’s intended use, in our case as educators using it in a lesson
and not using it how the creators intended to use it, we are using it in a way
that fair use intended, including different concepts of audience, meaning and
interpretation. This is not to say we can use a checklist and think we are not
infringing upon a copyright, but that with understanding fair use and
transfromativeness in our educator roles we can better determine how to use
copyrighted materials.
I think ‘Copyright Clarity’ is a
book every educator should read. It does clarify the confusion over copyright
law and gives me as an educator a confidence in interpreting copyright law. I
think that confidence will impact my practice by allowing me to more
confidently use reason and judgement when using copyrighted material to help
the society around me (my school) by encouraging the development of new ideas
and information. I also see a whole lesson on clarifying copyright law for my
students in high-school. Copyright law is a benefit to creators and users and
we should be appreciative of a law that actually not only protects our intellectual properties but also encourages sharing of
information and ideas to benefit the society as a whole.
