Mrs. Sabol

Copyright Issues
A WebQuest for Staff Members
Designed by
Marie Sabol
Sabolm@Hudson.edu

Introduction | Task| Process | Evaluation | Conclusion | Credits

Introduction

Have you ever had a question about what you can or cannot use on your webpage? Have you ever wondered how much information you can copy from a book? Have you placed music in the background of a video and thought, is this legal? These and other questions have vague answers buried in pages of legal documents, but in this webquest we will try to outline some answers. 
  


The Task
You are a teacher of a class that teaches multimedia production and you have to deal with copyright issues everyday. A student would like to produce a video that includes ten minutes of video from a current movie rented from Blockbuster Video, and three different songs from a Dave Mathews Band compact disk. The student would then like you to display the production on the school district website. You know that this production might be against some copyright laws. What kind of information can you give this student?

The Process
You will research policies of school districts and universities and look at copyright guidelines for those institutions. Using the policies you have found as a base, you will create guidelines for your multimedia class. Listed below are some of the guidelines that you will need to address:
Length of copyrighted video media that can be used in multimedia productions
Length of copyrighted audio media that can be used in multimedia productions
Use of digital images in multimedia productions
Rights for use in the classroom
Performance rights for transmissions
You will create a document that establishes guidelines, or "rules of thumb" for your multimedia class. This document can be a list, or can be a web page with links back to your sources.

Resources
You are asked to research policies of other educational institutions. The following online sources should help you begin this process:
http://www.utexas.edu/policies/dmca.html
http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/cprtindx.htm
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/
http://www.copyright.gov/
http://www.benedict.com/

Here are some off-line sources (books!) that can help in this process.  Copy and paste the title of the book in the "Search the catalog" box below. Click on search to see the publication information, and to see if the book is available.
Copyright: current viewpoints on history, laws, legislation
Copyright for schools: a practical guide
Copyright for school libraries: a practical guide

Evaluation
You will be graded based on the guidelines you have set up for your class. The following scale will be used:

You must score at least 30 points in order to use your guidelines with your students.

Conclusion
You will have a complete set of guidelines for your multimedia class at the end of this project. Students will know exactly how much of any copyrighted work they can use in they can use in their multimedia productions. You will know what your rights are concerning performance and transmission of the student production.