The Impact of Copyright and Fair Use on Education1

The Impact of Copyright and Fair Use on Education

Madison Moore

ETEC 424.01W

University Texas A and M Commerce

June 12, 2019

 The Impact of Copyright and Fair Use on Education2

Any work that has been created by an author or an artist is protected by copyright law

to prevent others from stealing and claiming the original creators work as their own.“A work

does not need to be registered, published, or have a copyright notice on it to be protected by

copyright.” ("Using Copyrighted Material," n.d.) From the very moment the original creator has

made an original work it is protected by copyright law up till seventy years of the death of the

original creator. For educators a common question that arises from students when needing to

deal with written work and copyright terms such as, what works are safe to use as a source?

Thankfully, the fair use doctrine lets people be able use works protected copyright for

situational types of works, “such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship,

and research” ("More Information on Fair Use | U.S. Copyright Office," n.d.). With this students

and teachers can use and source material for their own creative purposes and research without

having to seek permission from the original creator.Whenever anyone begins to learn, it is

difficult to come up with original ideas, and that is where inspiration comes in. Using other’s

content within guidelines is key to sharing knowledge, so long as the resources are credited

accordingly. With this, educators build lesson plans, and can even pass along the resources to

their students to refer to as they work. However, the resources must always be credited

accordingly, and one must NEVER claim research as their own if it is not theirs.

There are however four factors an individual must know and take account of if a

copyrighted source would be an acceptable work to use, according to the ("Fair use for teaching

and research| UC Copyright," n.d.). One factor would be considering the purpose of the work,

which can matter greatly. Some works are a little more commercial while others are more

informative creatively. It needs to be understood that not all information is fair game, and

although one can rewrite knowledge in an original format, sometimes directly using information
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from a source may not be accepted as fair use, and with that, credit still needs to be taken into

consideration. Secondly, according to the University of California’s article, the nature of the

work is considered as well. Reproducing a work that is factual is much easier, due to it’s ease of

interpretation, things can be reworded easily when it comes to literary pieces. However, in terms

of artistic works, such as music or paintings/pictures, reproduction can be much more tedious, as

it is much more glaring when work is copied. However, according to point three, there is

somewhat of a workaround, when creating an original piece, it is never a problem to address

inspiration. One must put into question if using a part of media is acceptable and be able to

determine how much is too much when drawing from different sources. Lastly on point four of

the article’s points, money is determined. Putting a work or piece of media on the market is

always tedious, and analysts will scan and examine the piece to see what is and what isn’t fair

use. If a piece becomes successful due to the incorporation of someone else’s work, it can be a

problem for the person who reproduced it, and with that can follow many different lawsuits.

Fair use and copyrights are important, and it’s entirely understandable to be upset over

someone getting value out of a work that someone else created. However, that doesn’t mean that

inspiration can’t come into play, if one takes an existing idea and creates something new out of

it, there’s always more value in flourishing from that idea, especially one that is original.

Knowledge is important, and it is never a problem to share knowledge, especially as an educator,

however, when informing others, one must be sure to provide proper credit to the original

publisher of the article or lesson. Lastly, when publishing something, one must always consider

the four points from the University of California’s fair use article, and with that, take away the

importance or originality. There are hundreds of ideas in our heads, and as we discuss and share
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them, we add them to the melting pot of knowledge that resides around our world, we all evolve

ideas and progress them further and further than anyone could ever have gotten before.
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Works Cited

Fair use for teaching and research| UC Copyright. (n.d.). Retrieved October 23, 2018, from

http://copyright.universityofcalifornia.edu/use/fair-use.html

More Information on Fair Use | U.S. Copyright Office. (n.d.). Retrieved November 9, 2018, from

http://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/more-info.html

Using Copyrighted Material. (n.d.). Retrieved November 8, 2018, from

https://www.baylor.edu/copyright/index.php?id=56543