Guidelines for Fair Use in the Classroom

Making Photocopies

Use of copyrighted work in multimedia presentations

Fair Use allows teachers to use copyrighted materials without the author's permission for "educational purposes."

"Educational purposes" means:

non-commercial instruction or curriculum-based teaching by educators to students at nonprofit educational institutions
planned non-commercial study or investigation directed toward making a contribution to a field of knowledge, or
presentation of research findings at non-commercial peer conferences, workshops or seminars.

If your use is a fair use, you are allowed to use others' copyrighted works under these guidelines:

Multiple Copies

Only one copy per student; no charge to student except to cover copying costs
Copying is done for only one course
Copies of an author's entire work may not be put into a collective work (professor pack
"Consumable works" may not be copied -- workbooks, standardized tests

How much can you copy?

Article: 2,500-word limit
Longer work of prose: 1,000 words or 10 percent, whichever is less
Poem: 250-word limit
Longer poem: excerpt of no more than 250 words
Newspapers and periodicals may be copied as often as needed, within word limits above
No more than one chart, diagram, cartoon or picture from a book, periodical or newspaper
No more than one work copied from a single author
No more than three authors copied from single collective work
No more than nine instances of multiple copying during a single semester

Single Copies

Teachers may make a single copy of:

A chapter from a book
An article from a periodical or newspaper
A short story, short essay, short poem, even from a collective work.
A chart, graph, diagram, drawing, cartoon or picture from a book, periodical or newspaper

Use of copyrighted works in multimedia (MM) projects without permission of the copyright holder can be fair use under certain guidelines.

MM use means inclusion of others' works in a computer-based environment.

Who can use copyrighted works in MM projects?

Students may use copyrighted works in their MM projects and perform and display them for academic assignments.
Faculty may use others' work in MM curriculum materials, even for distance learning with limited access.
Faculty may demonstrate their MM creations at professional symposia and retain them in their own portfolios.
Faculty may retain MM products with others' work for two years for educational use (as specifically defined by copyright law). After that, they must obtain permission.

How much of someone's copyrighted work may be used?

If the copyrighted work is:

Text: Up to 10 percent or 1000 words, whichever is less.
Motion media: (e.g., video clips) Up to 10 percent or 3 minutes, whichever is less.
Poems: Up to 250 words. Three-poem limit per poet. Five-poem limit by different poets from an anthology.
Music: Up to 10 percent or 30 seconds, whichever is less.
Photos and images: Up to 5 works from one author (artist). Up to 10 percent or 15 works, whichever is less, from a collection.
Database information: Up to 10 percent or 2,500 fields or cell entries, whichever is less.