2/08:  Questions about recording student performances:

 

1.  What are the copyright guidelines for recording senior speeches?

2.  What are the copyright guidelines for recording student performances of copyrighted works - Christmas program, etc?

 

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2/14/08:  A question from a senior: 

 

PCAT:  definitely has Fair Use issues - full song and commerical weigh heavily against Fair Use.  Recommend that he seek public performance rights - Martha, Mike, Dwight could help them. 

3/5/08:  Talked with Martha after our meeting and she said she'd be happy to talk to student.  Needs a "mechanical license"and can get through Harry Fox agency - inexpensively and online.  Told student - and gave him an Upper School commendation for integrity, ethics, thoughtfulness, and planning ahead!

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Feb. 12, 2008: A teacher in lower school has students read books and record them on the computer. He would like to take part of a song from a commercial CD and use Audacity to add a little bit at the beginning and a little bit at the end of the recording. The purpose is to increase student interest in the reading project. He then would like to burn a copy of the student work to a CD and give it to the parents so they can hear how their child is doing. The parents would be allowed to keep the CD. Your thoughts? (Roger)

 

Roger - The teacher doesn't have permission from the CD copyright holder so he would have to claim Fair Use. I don't think there is a good basis for a claim here. Though it could be argued that adding the music to the recording could have an educational purpose as part of a multimedia presentation, I don't think burning it to a CD and giving it to the parents to keep has much educational value. Of course, there is the issue of making a recording of a whole copyrighted book.

 

Anne - I had the impression that the reason for him having the children read aloud on the computer and record it to a CD was so that they would get excited about reading, but also to show their progress as reading students. I don't think burning it to a CD is the right answer, since we don't know what would happen to the recording when it left the school. What if parents wanted to put it on youtube so Grandma and Grandpa could hear it? Do we get into public performance issues here? My thought was that if the teacher wants to go forward with recording the students on the computer and adding small bits of songs or other bells and whistles, that's okay, as long as he doesn't burn it to a CD to give to the parents. My suggestion to him was that he could share these recordings (on the computer) with the parents during their parent/teacher conference held in his classroom. The children are required to come to the conference, too, so they could all hear the recording and celebrate the child's success as a reader, noting progress made this year. But then once the evaluation is done, the teacher would be expected to delete the recording. Does any of this sound at all appropriate?

 

PCAT:  This is a MULTIMEDIA project - recording a book and putting music with it.

 

1.  Okay to record a full book?               

2.  Okay to burn and give to student as part of portfolio?               

3.  Okay to use music?

 

Copyrights involved: 

Adaptation - reading the book

Reproduction - copying the music

 

Fair Use

1. Purpose - Educational - FAVORS Fair Use  (except if outside of classroom by sharing with parents)

2. Amount - full book, NOT in favor

3. Nature - published, FAVORS fair use

4. Effect - legally acquired, one copy made,  FAVORS Fair Use - but full book would have a negative impact does NOT favor

Spontaneous - NO - does NOT favor

Money involved - no, FAVORS Fair Use

 

Follow DESE MultiMedia guidelines.  Must give credit and note that prepared under Fair Use.

 

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I have a scenario for you. Recently, a boarding parent sent me (as co-chair of the Junior Class) a draft of a newsletter to send out to parents. It included an inspiring article by Art Buchwald that she had found at an educational site on the Internet. In reviewing it, Debbie Dutton (School Contact for the PPA) raised the copyright question and asked Publications about it. 

 

The first email noted that Publications wasn’t sure, so Debbie Googled “fair use education” and read several articles.  Her conclusion was that it was probably okay to send out, but she wasn’t positive. She suggested that the parent cite the website and “to be on really safe footing,” send an e-mail to that site asking permission or send one to the Washington Post where Buchwald was a columnist. In her research, she did not find anything that specifically addressed e-mailing, but noted that it is for educational purposes – “sort of” and probably okay because we were not infringing on his or his descendants to make money off of the article.

 

A second email indicated that the advice from Publications was “not to spend too much time on this copyright. It's when you're printing something for publication that you have to err on the side of caution.”

 

In the meantime, I had emailed the parent and asked where she had gotten the article and explaining the issue. She emailed the site where she found it, and this is the response she received:

 

“Thanks for your email and inquiry. I don't know where I originally found this article. I gooled [sic] 'love and the cabbie' and several other sites came up, all by Art Buchwald, source unknown. Mr. Buckwald [sic] died this past January so you won't have an [sic] copyright issues with him personally. You can cite the Honolulu Community College Faculty Development Website as your source and the copyright folks can come after me and not you. Best wishes for success with your educational endeavors and aloha.”

 

 

What do you think? What would your response have been?  How can we be proactive and have resources for folks to look at to make decisions?

 

 Judy-This is a  problem. Mr. Buchwald's work is copyrighted whether he is alive or not.  E-mailing is just like copying. The people in Hawaii do not have the right to find articles on the web and give people the right to use them. Our library databases are clear in saying that people cannot take the information from them and just email it to whomever. Fair use would say a student has the right to use certain amounts of a work with proper citing. A newsletter does not have that right. We cannot cite the website which pulled information from other websites. There is nothing to say that any of the other websites even had the right to use the articles. In order to keep the right of fair use for education, we must be careful to use it properly. This sort of thing is doable on the web, but that does not mean it meets fair use.

Roger - This is the promise and danger of the Internet. Unless copyright becomes a number 1 priority of The Principia, it is going to be challenging to get people to understand what is involved in copyright law. We should get the word out about our committee and the Wiki. Maybe we could start of series of interesting (ones that people might read) emails about copyright law. I think the Honolulu people have made our parent an accessory to copyright violation. The simpliest answer would be to link to the site with the article, but that is now questionable because we know the site doesn't have permission to post it to their site.

 

1/18/08:  PCAT clear that it is a copyright violation.  Question:  What would be acceptable?  Bottom Line:  find original source - what publication did he write it for?  Could check Copyright Clearance Center - to locate source.  Ask librarian for help in locating original source.  Good Point:  If you don't get original, not sure of accuracy.  Could try databases and see if there - then could link to it - students and parents have access.  Great PR for library - instead of violating copyright, do it the right way.

Question:  How do we educate our broader Principia community, including Publications?   PCAT could prepare an email letting them know our take on this, and that we would be interested in working with them to prepare accurate answers/information.  Do they know that PCAT exists?   What is Phil's role with our committee?  TIME is the issue.   If it always about time, may as well chuck copyright.  PCAT needs to be pro-active - get clear info out on our websites and talk to parents.  When have teachable moment, sieze them!  Can't just have resources and tell them to read and do what they want.  We need to be resources, too.  How to get Phil involved?  PCAT does not have anyone sanctioning this committee.  PEC issue - how does Principia deal with all the copyright issue?   Sue will see what she can do to get it on PEC's radar.  Invite Publications to join our Committee?  Roger will send Rockwoods copyright booklet to Sue to review.