Copyright Scenarios

A teacher wants to show a movie to his class to reward students for their great work on the AP exam.  He goes to Walmart and buys the movie.  This is fair use.

• True: Showing a movie in a classroom under a teacher’s supervision qualifies as fair use.
• True: "Reward" is listed as one of the acceptable uses under fair use guidelines.
• False:  "Entertainment" and "reward" are explicitly excluded under fair use guidelines. 
• False: It is only fair use if it is the school’s copy, not a personal copy.

A teacher finds the perfect video explaining a topic on YouTube.  Since YouTube is blocked on student computers, she downloads the video to her computer and then uploads it to Canvas so students can watch it there.  This is fair use.

• True: You can show anything to anyone online.
• False:  According to their terms of service, you are not allowed to download videos from YouTube.
• False: YouTube videos are not allowed to be shown to a whole class at one time.
• True:  YouTube videos are public domain and have no copyright restrictions.

A group of students create a documentary about John Lennon's role as an anti-war activist, weaving old news clips from footage about the Vietnam War and clips from various Lennon songs to show how his lyrics reflected his beliefs about the war. This is fair use.

• False: No use of popular music falls under fair use.
• True: Songs and videos over 20 years old are in the public domain anyway.
• False: No use of video clips is acceptable under fair use.
• True:  As long as students do not post their documentary to a public website, this is fair use.

A teacher buys a copy of Gone with the Wind to show the burning of Atlanta scene to her class while they are studying the Civil War. This is fair use.

• True: The video is a legal copy used for educational purposes.
• True:  The teacher is only showing one scene so it falls under fair use.
• False: A personal copy of a movie isn’t acceptable for use in the classroom.
• False: Parental permission is required for minors to view a popular movie.

A student finds an image online of a yellow jacket hive. Since the school mascot is the Yellow Jackets, he uses the photo as a graphic element on the school’s website, giving credit to the source of the original image.  This is fair use.

• True: The image was already published online, so it can be used elsewhere online.
• True: This image was not marked as copyrighted, so it is in the public domain.
  
• False:  Internet images are copyrighted automatically.  The student can not post anything for the general public without obtaining permission (even if credit is given).  
• False: The image is not the school’s official yellow jacket, so it is not acceptable for the school’s official website.

A student creates a multimedia art project using copyrighted images of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings that she has downloaded from the internet.  She submits this project to a competition honoring classroom work and wins a prize for the school.  This is fair use.

• True:  The competition was designed for classroom work by students.  If the project was uploaded to a public web page, then the copyrighted works would cause a problem.
• True: She can do whatever she wants because rules don't apply to her.
• False:  She needed permission from the estate of Frank Lloyd Wright to enter the competition.
• False:  Since the competition is not within the school, she is not allowed to use the images and show them elsewhere.

A student has paid to download one of her favorite songs from iTunes onto her phone.  She wants to use the entire song as background music for her science class presentation.  This is fair use.

• True:  She is only using the music in class so it is for educational use.
• False:  She is using more than 30 seconds or 10% of the song so it  violates copyright restrictions.
• True:  As long as she paid for the song originally (and didn’t use a pirated copy), she is allowed to use the song at school.
• False:  The student downloaded the music to her personal device.  She needs the teacher to download it at school in order to use it in a presentation.

A video production class produces a video of various student activities throughout the school year, for entertainment purposes.  They use popular music clips in the video and all the songs are fully listed in the credits.  In order to raise money for a new sound board, they sell copies of the video.  All money goes back to the school.  This is covered under fair use.

• True:  Since the money is being used in a school, this is fair use.
• False: Popular music is not appropriate for any educational use.
• True:  If the clips are short enough, no copyright applies.
• False:  The music is not being used for any educational purpose, merely for entertainment and therefore violates copyright restrictions.

A history class is studying how music was used as protest during the Vietnam War.  One part of their unit project requires them to play a song in class and discuss how that song was used to influence public opinion about the war.  This is fair use.

• True:  The music is being used for educational purposes, not entertainment.
• True:  As long as the students actually purchase each song that they want to use, they have permission to use it in class.
• False:  Popular music is not appropriate for any educational use.
• False:  The students will probably be entertained by the songs, so it is not fair use.

For exam review, students have to create a Google Slides presentation about one of the units they have learned this semester. Students use a variety of images they found online in the presentation They have a slide at the end that cites all of the image sources. Students upload their presentations to the class Canvas page so that only other students in the class can use them for review.  This is fair use.

• False: Since Canvas is on the internet, students cannot publish work there without getting the creators’ permission to publish the images.
• True:  The students are using the images for educational purposes and are not posting them to a public website.
• False: The citations would have to be included under each image to be acceptable.
• True:  As long as images are cited, students can use them for any reason.