Copyright Primer: Fair Use Copyright Quiz

By Hall Davidson
1. The owner of the local video store supports the school by donating one DVD rental-free
to the school every Friday. The video is shown in the multi-purpose room to reward
students with perfect attendance that week. It does improve attendance. This falls under
fair use.
Answer: Even though the outcome of using this video as a reward for perfect attendance proves
to have positive results, the video usage does not fall under fair us. The video should be part of
the teachers lesson and should be shown for educational purposes.
2. A teacher buys a single-user program with department money and puts it on the Local
Area Network (LAN). It is frequently used by several teachers at the same time. This is
done in violation of a written district policy against using single-user programs on the
LAN. After two years, the software company takes action against the individual teacher.
The district is also liable.
Answer: The first thing that came to my mind was, how did this go on for two years within the
district and no one noticed? Because this type of usage was a violation of a written district
policy, there is no way this should have lasted so long. District money was used a so the school
is liable and the teacher who purchased is also at fault initially but if the other teachers knew this
was being shared, then they too should be held responsible for at the least violating the district
policy.
3. On her home VCR, a history teacher taped the original ABC news report of Nixon
leaving the White House after resigning. She uses the entire news program every year in
her classroom. This is fair use.
Answer: This is not fair use because she can only show it for ten days consecutively and then
there are specific reasons to use it after this time frame.
4. A school purchases a single copy of a math program and installs it on the server so it
can be accessed by classrooms throughout the school and also on the stand-alone
computers in the portables. The policy is that only one class can use it at a time and the
policy is religiously enforced. Permissible.
Answer: Only one person can use this at a time so as long as one computer is not running the
math program at the same time, they should be okay.
5. Purchasing a computer program is the same as licensing it.
Answer: It is not the same. Though you may have paid for the software, what you have actually
done is licensed the application, essentially paying for the rights to use the software according to
guidelines determined by the owner. The owner of the software remains the person or entity that

holds the copyright, giving them the sole legal authority power to sell, distribute, copy and/or
change the content of the software.
http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Hardware_Software/OwningSoftware.asp

6. A teacher rents Gone with the Wind to show the burning of Atlanta scene to her class
while studying the Civil War. This is fair use.
Answer: This is fair use because the teacher is using this movie for educational purposes/class
curriculum.
7. Copyrighted material used without permission in multimedia projects may remain in
the student's portfolio forever.
Answer: If the student has used 10% of the material and they are not distributing it for any
reason, they should be fine.
8. Asking for permission is key to fair use protection in education.
Answer: Part of fair use protection is not having the need to ask for permission to use the
material. If everyone asked permission to use material, the person being ask would never get any
rest.
9. Using a legal copy of an off-line Web Browser, a district technology specialist
downloads and caches educational and non-educational web pages for school Internet
trainings. This is fair use.
Answer: Yes it is, because the information is available to the public without having to purchase
anything and the person using it is not charging anything for its usage.
10. A science teacher asks the school librarian to record a great episode of Reading
Rainbow on its original broadcast on 3/02. He figures on using it for years. His
students digitize parts for a multimedia class project. This is okay.
Answer: This is not okay by any means. Reading Rainbow is originally broadcasted on PBS
(Public Broadcast System) and although you could use this for a certain amount of time. The best
thing to do is purchase the episode because the students can digitize until the material has to be
either deleted or demolished.
11. A student finds a photo online dramatizing a pre-Columbian Viking landing in
America. Since the school symbol is the Viking, he posts this photo on the school web
page. It links back to the original website. This is fair use.
Answer: No it is not fair use. It is best to get permission to put this on the school website, this is
not used for educational purposes and a link does not make it legal.
12. A student doing a multimedia report copies the video of Kennedy's "We shall go to
the moon" speech from the CD-ROM version of Groliers Encyclopedia. Her teacher
posts the project on the school LAN. This is fair use.

Answer: I can see how this could be fair use because the student is using it for a report but once
the teacher posts the project on the school LAN, I think there could be an issue because if where
the post is being placed on the site is able to be viewed by outsiders, fair use is no longer fair at
all.
13. A school purchases a typing tutorial program and houses it in the library. It is checked
out to students to take home. By enforced policy, the homes erase the program at the
end of the two week checkout period. Permissible?
Answer: Sure it is permissible to take it home but letting the students take it home puts the
school in jeopardy because someone in the home may make a copy, may sell it, may distribute it
or do something that could trace it back to the school.
14. A student building a multimedia art project uses copyrighted images of Frank Lloyd
Wright buildings downloaded from the web. He submits this project to her states
Student Multimedia Festival (and others) honoring classroom work and wins the $1,000
prize for the school. This is permissible under fair use.
Answer: This is permissible under fair use even if the student wins $1000. The prize money is
for the school and the project is used for the festival and is not given out to others
15. The teacher of the winning multimedia project mentioned above shows it at an art
conference for educators. It cost $50 to attend the conference and the teacher is
awarded free attendance because he is a presenter. This is fair use.
Answer: Yes because the teacher is using it for an educators conference.
16. A high school sells a student video yearbook made by volunteers for $25 to raise
money for equipment for the school. They use popular music clips. The money all goes to
the school. The songs are fully listed in the credits. Fair use.
Answer: Just because the songs are listed in the credits does not make it alright to use. The
purpose of the yearbook is to make a profit. There is nothing used for educational gain just
financial gain.
17. A school can only afford one copy of KidPix. It loads this onto the library computer
and all students and all classes have access to it all day. The teachers copy and install
KidPix Player on their classroom computers to evaluate the student work. This is
permissible.
Answer: This depends on whether or not KidPix can be used by one person at a time or if more
than one can use it at the same time. If the license agreement allows multiple users then it should
be alright.

18. A teacher creates his own grading program. He transfers to another school and forgets
to delete the program from the network. Everyone at his old school copies and uses

the program. He sues the school and wins. He is likely to receive a significant
monetary reward.
Answer: The school should have discussed the options with the teacher who created the program,
no matter what those options were. If the teachers in the school were using the program after the
teacher left the school on the same network he created it on, then they should have found out
before they started using it if the school/district was allowed to use something that was created
on their network. I thought it was strange that a teacher had access to be able to create a program
on the network in the first place, so does that mean if he was allowed to do it and was not
blocked then it should not be an issue for him to have created it in the first place?
19. An elementary school transcribes the lyrics from the album CATS for the school
mini-musical. There is no admission charge. Fair use applies
Answer: This is not fair use. The school needs to get permission to use this material in a public
setting for this is not for educational purposes but for entertainment.
20. An enterprising media aid tapes 60 Minutes every week in case teachers need it.
This is fair use.
Answer: No this is not because there is no indication that this is being done for educational
purposes. Also, permission would be needed to tape this weekly. The teachers should say what
episode they need and what it is for and you cant have the recording sitting around for week,
months, or years waiting to get some play time. There is a timeframe for keeping this stuff
around.
The Copyright Quiz may be reproduced (with attribution) for educational purposes from
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2001, Hall Davidson - hall@cccd.edu