Oct 29 2007
Copyright Question
It would seem that with all of the 21st century technology available to us that copyright is not or should not be a big issue. We all know how to:
- copy and paste’ an author’s text from their document to our document,
- to copy and paste photos from a website to a document.
- to copy music we enjoy to a CD or to the ubiquitous iPod.
- to install software on more computers than what the purchased license allows
During our last class our instructors reminded us once more that copyright and its practices is a serious issue and that as School Based Technology Specialists we need to be aware of some guidelines. The following paragraph came from a document created by one of our instructors and was in a handout we received in class:
“In order to help educator’s understand what they can and can’t do, a doctrine of “fair use” has evolved. Fair Use is based on 4 principles. They can be remembered with the acronym
“CAN I?”
C=what is the character of the use….educational or commercial?
A=Amount; what portion of the work am I using?
N=Nature; what is the nature of the original publication and how am I altering it?
I-Impact; what will be the impact that my use has on the market value of the item?”
We were directed to the following website which contains a chart for us to use as a guideline: Technology & Learning Copyright and Fair Use Guidelines for Teachers.
A kindergarten teacher asked me recently about copying her very old 33rpm vinyl record collection in her classroom to CD’s. My research on the web indicated that there are numerous web sites for businesses that provide this service and that creating multiple CD copies of a vinyl record were yours for the asking.
I found two websites that I feel very comfortable in recommending to her because they do acknowledge copyright legalities. The information on copyright was copied directly from the websites.
http://www.memorysafedvd.com/services/audio.aspx
In order to comply with copyright regulations, we will ONLY accept a commercially produced album or tape for conversion, and you may purchase no more than one additional copy of the CD produced from your album or tape.
http://www.thickandmystic.com/cassettetocd.asp
LEGAL RESTRICTIONS
DO NOT USE THIS AS LEGAL ADVICE.
There are some simple copyright restrictions. The basic idea is, if you own the original tape or LP, you can convert it to CD, or, if the cassette contains non-copyrighted material (ie. personal recordings, family events, talent shows, etc.) you can convert it to CD.
Court decisions have made the copyright issues gray. The courts seem to agree that you as an individual can make a copy of a copyrighted item for private use. If you use the CD copy we produce for anything other than private use (ie. you try to sell it, you make digital copies and give them to your friends) you are in violation of copyright law. We will not be held responsible for customers who do not follow copyright restrictions. The courts are generally concerned with financial harm caused to the original artist or copyright holder. If the item is out of print (and we have to assume that anything you send to us is out of print, or why wouldn’t you just go buy the CD?) it is reasonable to assume that you are not causing financial harm to the copyright holder as it is not available for sale anyway.
You must own the original cassette or LP. We cannot convert an illegal copy of an LP, cassette, or CD. What does this mean? Please don’t send us the cassette copy you made of a record you borrowed from your sister, and don’t send us that bootlegged cassette you bought in the back alley. You get the idea.
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This is one of the “big” questions as we move from “vinyl” to digital. Technically, if the record is available as a digital file, you need to purchase the digital edition. This gets a little crazy so, my reaction (no legal basis) is–go ahead and make your vinyl record digital–but keep a record of the original purchase. One other thing to consider, however, is the amount of time it will take to transfer all of those vinyl records–if it takes 45 minutes/record and a teacher makes $35.00/hour; then it just cost more than $20 in labor–not a good use of a teacher’s time