Assignment

Make a copy of the cases outlined at the bottom of this document and consider the questions attached to each of them. Create a document in your portfolio with each of the cases/questions and your thoughts on each of them, including answers to the questions. You can find information about Copyright/Fair Use in the online work for week 7.

DELIVERABLE: Send a link to your completed case study analysis to Scott by Friday November 1 at 11:59PM

Due Date

Friday November 1, 11:59PM

Questions?

Email Scott for clarification at schopie1@msu.edu

Copyright Cases

Copyright Case #1

Professor A. teaches a course about American cities, specifically focusing on Chicago and New York City. As a part of the course in his face-to-face version he uses two video sets, Chicago – City of the Century (http://amzn.to/nEJmh8) and Ric Burns’ New York (http://amzn.to/qSYens). Typically he uses portions of 2 of the 3 discs in the Chicago set, and shows all 5 of the New York videos.

As Professor A begins to move his course to an online format he is faced with the problem of how to show the videos to his online students. Please consider the following questions:

Can Professor A. digitize and stream the videos to his students?
What could he do to minimize the risk of copyright violations and follow fair use?
What are other options Professor A. might consider?

Copyright Case #2

Professor G. teaches a course in arts education. He has written many papers on the subject and as he moves his course online he would like to use some of them as readings for his course. He puts several of the articles up in his ANGEL course, but is then told by a colleague that he may be violating copyright law. Upon further inquiry, Professor G. is told that he must pay the publisher a certain amount of money per article, per semester in order to use them in his course.

How do you interpret this case? Is the publisher in the right to request payment?
Could Professor G. make a case for fair use? How?
What are some options Professor G. has for disseminating his work to students?

Copyright Case #3

Professor M. is an avid “screencaster,” often creating several short narrated slideshows each week that she puts online for her students. Because Professor M. knows the power of imagery, she often uses visuals to help illustrate her points. Her students often give her positive feedback about these materials. Professor M. uses Google’s image search to find relevant images for her presentations, then puts them into her slideshows. One day, a publishing company approaches Professor M. about using her slideshows in an upcoming textbook. Please consider the following about Professor M’s case.

Is Professor M. violating copyright/fair use by using images from Google’s image search?
If you determine she is in violation, what might she do to come into compliance?
What about the offer from the publishing company? Can Professor M. sell them her slideshows?

Copyright Case #4

Professor D. is a tech savvy instructor who teaches film studies and multimedia creation in an online format. As a part of her course, she has an assignment where she models several video “remixes” – videos created from one or a variety of sources that often take inspiration from or follow known storylines (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T5_0AGdFic) – that she has created and then asks her students to create their own remixes and share them with others via YouTube.

Professor D. also takes short clips from Hollywood movies and presents them to the class as a part of her lectures to illustrate various topics associated with film creation and criticism. She owns the DVD’s of each movie and uses a “ripper” to pull portions of the clips, then places them into her University’s learning management system so only her students have access.

Is Professor D violating copyright/fair use in her remixing activity? Why or why not?
Are her students violating copyright/fair use in their remixing assignment?
Is Professor D violating copyright/fair use in her use of the short Hollywood clips? Why or why not?