My Copyright Action Plan

When looking into copyright laws, and how they would affect my teaching, I came across three things that I didn't know I could or could not do. I found it interesting how much trouble making the most simple mistake could mean. I also found it interesting that there are things I had never done before because I was afraid of infringing on a copyright law that are actually allowed under the fair use act. While researching this topic I learned that using photographs in face-to-face classroom presentations is allowed under the fair use provision. I also learned that you can use a copy of an article from a journal, and you can not continue to use the same copied item from year to year.

I was surprised to learn that using photographs in presentations such as PowerPoint is not a copyright infringement. This was a pleasant surprise to me as I thought that it actually was. This news makes creating presentation much less stressful. (http://blog.lib.umn.edu/copyinfo/scenarios/cat_teaching.html)

I was also surprised to learn that it is permissible to use an entire article from a journal as part of your classroom teaching. However, I am not so thrilled about the restrictions involved in this permission. One restriction that I am particularly bothered by is that you can't make copies of multiple articles from the same publication. (http://guides.library.jhu.edu/content.php?pid=169195&sid=1424689)

Finally, I was disappointed to learn that in almost every print source you are allowed to make a copy of at least some of it. However, you can not use that copy from year to year. This is yet another inconvenience. (http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ21.pdf)


Regardless of the pains copyright laws may cause, they are still manageable. My plan is to find several sources that I enjoy using to avoid making copies of more than one article from the same source, and to find new research each year to avoid using the same source from year to year. Also, I plan to use many more pictures in my presentations while always making sure they are relevant to what I am teaching to again avoid breaking copyright laws.