When it comes to copyright law and the application of fair use exceptions, ignorance is definitely not bliss! Learn how to educate yourselves and your students and avoid making a costly mistake!

You really did plan to find time over the summer to familiarize yourself with the latest information on copyright law. You absolutely intended to look up the fair use guidelines for using technology resources. You truly meant to create a classroom copyright policy, locate agencies that grant permissions to use copyrighted materials, write a template for a permission request form, and locate sites to teach students about the value of original work and the societal benefits of obeying copyright laws. You just had a few other things to do.

So now you have a student who wants to include audio of a Beatles song in a multimedia presentation about the 1960s, another who wants to include the poem "Casey at the Bat" in a report on the World Series, and a third who wants to post photographs of Gore and Bush to the class Web site.

What's an educator to do? Read Education World's five-part series on copyright, fair use, and new technologies, that's what! We did the work so you wouldn't have to!

Click Part 1: Copyrights and Copying Wrongs below to begin.

EDUCATION WORLD'S COPYRIGHT SERIES

The Educator's Guide to Copyright and Fair Use Part 1: Copyrights and Copying Wrongs Part 2: Is Fair Use a License to Steal? Part 3: Copyright Law and New Technologies Part 4: Applying Fair Use to New Technologies Part 5: District Liability and Teaching Responsibility

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Article by Linda Starr
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