The cover for Bound By Law, a Fair Use comic book [link]
Some of the questions we will address include:
Can I photocopy magazine articles and distribute them to my students?
Can I have the ITS – Media Center videotape a television program to be shown in one of my classes?
Can I post copyrighted materials on my Blackboard course?
Can I show a videotape I rented from Blockbuster or Netflix, on campus?
The answer to each of the preceding questions is “Maybe”.
– Information Technology Services email promoting copyright workshops for the College community
“Digital technology has transformed media into a language of images,” said Virginia Kuhn, Associate Director of the Institute for Multimedia Literacy at the University of Southern California.
“But there’s no liberating potential in literacy unless you can both consume it and add to the discourse. What is an available resource through which to speak? It’s images. If you’re banned from using [images], you can only use part of the available alphabet. That’s effectively silencing people.”
To ensure that complete alphabet, United States citizens can be protected under Fair Use. The legal provision permits people to use copyrighted material for “criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research” without the author’s permission, meaning student work is often protected.
– USA Today, “Why every college student should understand Fair Use and copyrights”
The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education [link]
University of Maryland [link]
Amherst College [link]
