Tag: fair use

Associated Press and “Fair Use”

Saul Hansell in a NY Times article reports that the Associated Press is reacting to what the AP considers excesses quoting by bloggers and is attempting to set guidelines.

The Times article states:

Last week, The A.P. took an unusually strict position against quotation of its work, sending a letter to the Drudge Retort asking it to remove seven items that contained quotations from A.P. articles ranging from 39 to 79 words.

It did occur to me that the quote I provide above may be an example of the violation described. Hmm …

As the article indicates, Fair Use is a “vague doctrine.” My own understanding has been that assumptions about fair use that educators typically understand do not extend to web publication (e.g., blog entries). As I tell my students, the existence of the TEACH act (UTSystem summary) argues that Congress saw the need to address fair use in the online environment and did so under restrictions limiting online access to students in a course and behind a sign-in system. What you commonly see online does not involve a course or a limited audience.

I am not certain the use of brief quotes would even be a “fair use” issue. If the Times analysis provides all necessary details, the use of short quotes in the writing of all professional writers would be suspect. I am guessing more on this issue will follow.

(my extended comments on the TEACH act, text of TEACH act)

Related post from BuzzMachine.

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Who still uses coursepacks?

I read something about a suit brought by publishers against Georgia State a few days ago and did not think much more about it (NY Times). Then Carvin offered a blog post on the same topic.

It seems Georgia State has been providing students digital reproductions of content from several publishers without authorization.

My first reaction was that the institution purposefully intended to push the “fair use” issue. Then, I wondered if GSU was behind and had different resources than I am used to at my institution. Most of the journals here whether on the shelf or not are available full-text and online. If off-campus (the system must track the IP address of the request), you have to enter a valid university ID for access.

I think I finally figured out what this is about. It is not about journal articles, but book chapters. Libraries can generate pdfs from books, but have to request and typically pay for clearance in the same way they had to pay for clearance in the old days of hard-copy course packs.

Perhaps publishers will negotiate a different price for digital rights for books just like they do for journals. I would think the authentication system would offer similar protection.

There must be some middle ground here. Instructors and institutions cannot seriously think the library should be able to purchase one copy of a book and make it available to all students via pdfs.

According to the NY Times:

R. Bruce Rich, a partner in the law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, which is representing the plaintiffs, said that in spite of repeated attempts to work with Georgia State, “they indicated that they had no interest in having a discussion.”

Mr. Rich said that in a letter his firm received last summer, Georgia State officials “indicated their view that all of their practices are covered under the fair use doctrine.”

GSU “officials” – ask the librarians, they know better. Would a librarian make multiple copies of a chapter, keep them behind the counter, and hand them out when students wanted one? The may even have a stamp that they print a message on a single copy to indicate the understanding under which that copy was made.

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Would you liberalize fair use if you could?

Ed bloggers (here unnamed) have latched on to a School Library Journal article suggesting educators often unnecessarily limit themselves (and their students) with a conservative interpretation of fair use.

Fear and guilt seemed regularly in the way of innovative teaching and creative expression.

While I am not a lawyer (anyone who comments on copyright says this, so I will too), but I have written on the issues of copyright and fair use as these issues relate to student created multimedia in our books for future educators. I am likely one of those people who takes a conservative position based on my reading of the law and the participatory activities I feel are of greatest educational value.

The “take a more liberal few of fair use” seems to focus on promoting the value of transformation as unique expression.

What I would like to see are classroom examples arguing for the need for “mix-up, mash-up” projects. I want such examples so I can ask myself and others whether such projects would really be the best choice for engaging students. Why not focus on projects that require students to create their own content from scratch – take your own pictures, write your own prose? Why not share resources with other classrooms if location is an issue? I am not suggesting that it would be impossible to create a scenario in which repurposing the work of another might be necessary, but I am thinking such situations would be extremely rare and creative opportunities by their nature are basically unlimited.

I think a more significant issue is the confusion articles such as the Library Journal create. Will educators read the article carefully enough to inform their practice? Is the article informative enough to inform practice? Will the impression that others are doing it serve as an excuse? Are Grateful Dead concert posters really cultural history? Will people who advocate mash-ups as good education understand what the previous question meant?

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More on “Fair Use”

Here a few more comments related to yesterday’s post on “fair use” in educational settings.

My understanding of what educators should encourage is based largely on my reading of the TEACH Act and related commentary (e.g.., Georgia Harper). The very necessity of the TEACH Act suggests to me that educational fair use should not be interpreted as extending to sharing products online. Note that fair use standards were clearly limited to “face to face” classroom settings before the TEACH Act and limited to specific online circumstances (e.g., protected environments) after the TEACH Act. I can now include limited amounts of video, text, music, etc. in my online classes in the same way I could previously use such resources in my FTF classes. As I understand the 2002 law, the notion that an educational product using protected resources (small quantities or whatever) offered in an open way online does not fall under the fair use guidelines of the TEACH Act. Open access amounts to publication – whether for commercial purposes or not. If there are other more liberal guidelines available informing what products resulting from educational experiences can be offered online, I would like to be directed to these resources.

A recent analysis from the EFF entitled Recut, Reframe, and Recycle is now available. But, be careful to recognize the difference in what advocacy groups suggest and what exists in law or through such review processes such as CONFU. Organizations (Center for Social Media) have a way of being focused on an organization-f0cused agenda rather than attempting to balance the rights of all parties that may be impacted when a more formal decision/recommendation is made.

Again, I am not a legal expert (however, I do play one on the web – 😉 ). Unlike those who interpret things in a very loose way, my advice is unlikely to get you in trouble.

Whatever your interpretation of fair use, I stand by my position that expecting students to rely on their own talents to create all components of products they want to offer is the best policy. I would argue that it is nearly always better as a learning experience to develop your own skills or collaborate with willing partners to create products.

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I must respectfully disagree

I hate to begin the new year by complaining, but I find that I must. Perhaps I should suggest that my comments are intended to offer a different perspective. I guess you are free to interpret my remarks as you will.

This post was prompted by a recent post on the 21st Collaborative blog concerning intellectual property. I do not intend to single this blogger out – the post just happened to be the trigger for these comments.

I respectfully disagree with the position that “our kids” are being limited because copyright law is too restrictive. In my opinion:

  • It is inappropriate to decide what you have a right to do with the property of someone else (digital or not). It is especially troubling when educators take this position. The notion of entitlement in education is very dangerous.
  • Those who advocate the use of the content of others often target a specific type of material making artificial distinction between situations/formats in which it is acceptable and unacceptable to use the work of others. I find it especially troubling when some advocate the use of the digital objects created by others while assuming they personally should be compensated for the delivery of information in other circumstances or in a different format (e.g., paid for teaching, paid for presenting).
  • The argument that someone else has made enough money on a product cannot be an excuse. If you object to the cost of a ticket do not attend. If you object to the cost of a CD, do not purchase. While you can probably get away with appropriating digital content, the income a talented individual has generated hardly seems a reasonable justification for theft. To me, there is something wrong with acting on this premise in some circumstances (digital content), but assuming you cannot in others (sneaking into a theater because the movie is too expensive, stealing the book because it is over priced).
  • I think a sound argument can be made that creating your own digital objects is the best learning experience. Write your own material. Take your own pictures. Converting the ideas of others into your own method of representation is a superior learning experience to relying on the creativity, talents, and physical representation of someone else. If the focus on the “polish” or impressiveness of the product encourages the use of music, video, computer code, artwork, etc. created by those with greater skill, the focus on personal learning has been lost.

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Fair Use – Video

Educators who want to involve their students in multimedia authoring and Internet sharing will need to consider topics that educators might avoid under more traditional circumstances. Authoring and distribution requires special attention to copyright and safety issues.

Some assistance may be available for those educators who would describe what their students are doing as creating documentary videos. The Center for Social Media has prepared a best practices document by interviewing documentary film makers and asking for their opinions. The document is brief and readable. Our son works as a video editor and he has described spending hours moving frame by frame through a video removing an unwanted commercial logo accidently included by the camera operator. The example from our son is among those situations discussed in the document.

Educators might even consider having students view the documentary video on fair use prepared as part of this effort.

I am assuming that the guidelines offered by those contributing to the guidelines and the video are offering only their professional opinions. Such was the case with the CONFU guidelines that offer advice on multimedia materials used in classrooms.

I first read of this effort in a blog entry offered by Andy Carvin. As always, Andy writes in depth about the project I have described briefly.

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Explaining Fair Use, Copyright

The Duke Law School has decided to use a new approach to explain some challenging concepts – copyright and fair use. The idea is to embed core ideas within the story line of a comic book. The storyline follows the adventures of a filmmaker and her struggles with the reality of fair use. The link I provide offers access to a paper and Flash version.

Library of Congress Workshop

Resource produced by the Center for the Study of the Public Domain.

See Andy Carvin’s Waste of Bandwidth for a more detailed account. It was his post that brought this resource to me attention. Andy’s post contains some additional information regarding the sharing of resources across blogs and the license that allows such sharing.

An aside – encountering an example of an online comic is timely for me. I gave an exam in my grad EdTech class a week ago containing a question that asked students to evaluate the potential of an online comic book as a multimedia format for presenting complex ideas. The question was more focused on some of the multiple media vs. multiple modality issues raised by Mayer. The examples in his research articles looked like the panels from a comic book to me. So, for my students who also follow my blog, the idea was not as unrealistic as you thought.

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