Fair Use and TEACH Act

 One thing that is seems to be more difficult these days is the motivation of students. Teachers struggle to spark the interest of students. One way a teacher can is by sharing material, music, or videos that kids can relate to and be interested in. The biggest problem with this is the violation of the creator's rights of protection and copyright. One of the most important items a teacher developer can have when it comes to the Fair Use of a product is this check list. Making sure that the items you use will not cause problems and violate federal law is very important. With the TEACH Act, it has similar limitations, but it only applies to non-profit institutions. 

The TEACH Act expands the scope of educators' rights to perform and display works and to make the copies integral to such performances and displays for digital distance education, making the rights closer to those we have in face-to-face teaching. But there is still a considerable gap between what the statute authorizes for face-to-face teaching and for distance education. For example, as indicated above, an educator may show or perform any work related to the curriculum, regardless of the medium, face-to-face in the classroom - still images, music of every kind, even movies. There are no limits and no permission required. Under 110(2), however, even as revised and expanded, the same educator would have to pare down some of those materials to show them to distant students or make them available over the Internet to face-to-face students. The audiovisual works and dramatic musical works may only be shown as clips -- "reasonable and limited portions," the Act says.

 published by the University of Texas Library System