TEACHING TEENS ABOUT DIGITAL COPYRIGHTS and FAIR USE POLICIES |
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Our kids are used to having all types of creative work available at their fingertips. People’s writing, artwork, videos, and images can be inspiring, but they are also easy to take without thinking twice. We often forget about copyright law, which protects people’s creative work. Even though kids may feel they have the right to take and use anything they find online, the Internet is not a free-for-all. Kids have responsibilities for following copyright law and respecting creative work online. But there are exceptions such as fair use, which allows kids to use a small amount of copyrighted material without permission in certain situations, such as for schoolwork, criticizing or commenting on something, and parody. There is also material in the public domain, which includes work that is no longer copyrighted that kids can use however they want.
Some kids may not think about the hard work that goes into creating something like a movie, song, novel, video game, or website. They may not realize that copying and pasting material they find online and into schoolwork is plagiarism. They may not understand that illegal downloading and sharing of music and movies is piracy, which is stealing. Kids need to be educated about using copyrighted work online, make sure they get permission before using copyrighted work, and properly cite the work they use. They should also think about how they would want to protect their own creative work.
Copyright and Fair UseExclusions and Limitations |
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Fair Use
In its most general sense, a fair use is any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and “transformative” purpose, such as to comment upon, criticize, or parody a copyrighted work. Such uses can be done without permission from the copyright owner. In other words, fair use is a defense against a claim of copyright infringement. If your use qualifies as a fair use, then it would not be considered an illegal infringement.
So what is a “transformative” use? If this definition seems ambiguous or vague, be aware that millions of dollars in legal fees have been spent attempting to define what qualifies as a fair use. There are no hard-and-fast rules, only general rules and varied court decisions, because the judges and lawmakers who created the fair use exception did not want to limit its definition. Like free speech, they wanted it to have an expansive meaning that could be open to interpretation.
Most fair use analysis falls into two categories: (1) commentary and criticism, or (2) parody.
Commentary and Criticism
If you are commenting upon or critiquing a copyrighted work — for instance, writing a book review — fair use principles allow you to reproduce some of the work to achieve your purposes. Some examples of commentary and criticism include:
Parody
A parody is a work that ridicules another, usually well-known work, by imitating it in a comic way. Judges understand that, by its nature, parody demands some taking from the original work being parodied. Unlike other forms of fair use, a fairly extensive use of the original work is permitted in a parody in order to “conjure up” the original.
So what is a “transformative” use? If this definition seems ambiguous or vague, be aware that millions of dollars in legal fees have been spent attempting to define what qualifies as a fair use. There are no hard-and-fast rules, only general rules and varied court decisions, because the judges and lawmakers who created the fair use exception did not want to limit its definition. Like free speech, they wanted it to have an expansive meaning that could be open to interpretation.
Most fair use analysis falls into two categories: (1) commentary and criticism, or (2) parody.
Commentary and Criticism
If you are commenting upon or critiquing a copyrighted work — for instance, writing a book review — fair use principles allow you to reproduce some of the work to achieve your purposes. Some examples of commentary and criticism include:
- quoting a few lines from a Bob Dylan song in a music review
- summarizing and quoting from a medical article on prostate cancer in a news report
- copying a few paragraphs from a news article for use by a teacher or student in a lesson, or
- copying a portion of a Sports Illustrated magazine article for use in a related court case.
Parody
A parody is a work that ridicules another, usually well-known work, by imitating it in a comic way. Judges understand that, by its nature, parody demands some taking from the original work being parodied. Unlike other forms of fair use, a fairly extensive use of the original work is permitted in a parody in order to “conjure up” the original.
Copyright
What is copyright?
Copyright is a form of legal protection automatically provided to the authors of “original works of authorship,” including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works.
U.S. copyright law generally gives the author/creator or owner of an original creative work an exclusive right to:
What types of works are protected by copyright?
No, ideas are not copyrightable. Only tangible forms of expression (e.g., a book, play, drawing, film, or photo, etc.) are copyrightable. Once you express your idea in a fixed form — as a digital painting, recorded song, or even scribbled on a napkin — it is automatically copyrighted if it is an original work of authorship.
Who owns the copyright?
Who owns the copyright in recorded music?
It depends. If a person writes a song and records it, that person is the creator and owns the copyright. But professionally produced music can have many copyright owners. For example, the copyright to a particular sound recording may be owned by the songwriter, the performer, the producer, a record label, a publisher, or a combination thereof.
When I buy music, either online or offline, do I get copyright in the work?
No, when you buy music, you own that copy of the music. If you bought a CD, you are allowed to sell that particular copy or make fair uses of it, but you don't own a copyright in the music itself. If you bought a song on iTunes or other service, your ownership of it may be subject to certain restrictions.
Copyright is a form of legal protection automatically provided to the authors of “original works of authorship,” including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works.
U.S. copyright law generally gives the author/creator or owner of an original creative work an exclusive right to:
- Reproduce (copy) or distribute the original work to the public (e.g., create and sell copies of a film)
- Create new works based upon the original work (e.g., make a movie based on a book)
- Perform or display the work publicly (e.g., perform a play)
What types of works are protected by copyright?
- Literary works
- Music and lyrics
- Dramatic works and music
- Pantomimes and choreographic works
- Photographs, graphics, paintings and sculptural works
- Motion pictures and other audiovisual works
- Video games and computer software
- Audio recordings
- Architectural works
- Unfixed works that have not been recorded in a tangible, fixed form (e.g., a song you made up and sang in the shower)
- Work in the public domain (see below)
- Titles, names, short phrases, and slogans; familiar symbols or designs; numbers
- Ideas and facts
- Processes and systems (e.g., the Dewey decimal system)
- Federal government works (e.g., the tax code)
No, ideas are not copyrightable. Only tangible forms of expression (e.g., a book, play, drawing, film, or photo, etc.) are copyrightable. Once you express your idea in a fixed form — as a digital painting, recorded song, or even scribbled on a napkin — it is automatically copyrighted if it is an original work of authorship.
Who owns the copyright?
- Author/Creator
- Author/Creator’s heirs if the creator is dead (living family)
- Creators of a joint work automatically share copyright ownership unless there is a contrary agreement. (e.g., If two students write an original story together, they share the copyright.)
- Anyone to whom the author/creator has given or assigned his or her copyright (e.g., an employer if the copyrighted work is created under a "work made for hire" agreement, a publisher or record company if the copyrighted work is given in exchange for a publishing or recording contract). Usually this means that the author/creator has given up his or her own copyright in the work.
Who owns the copyright in recorded music?
It depends. If a person writes a song and records it, that person is the creator and owns the copyright. But professionally produced music can have many copyright owners. For example, the copyright to a particular sound recording may be owned by the songwriter, the performer, the producer, a record label, a publisher, or a combination thereof.
When I buy music, either online or offline, do I get copyright in the work?
No, when you buy music, you own that copy of the music. If you bought a CD, you are allowed to sell that particular copy or make fair uses of it, but you don't own a copyright in the music itself. If you bought a song on iTunes or other service, your ownership of it may be subject to certain restrictions.