Fair Use?

Fair use is limited use of any copyrighted material without needing the permission from the rights holder. Many of these items that are fair use are to be used in educational ways. Renting a movie and playing it for the class because it's the end of the week and relaxing does not count as fair use. But if you show that same movie because it correlates to something you are teaching, then it is fair use. 

Using fair use in education is very difficult. You need to know the boundaries of what you use, but reading about copyright laws makes it even more difficult to understand. There are loopholes and all different types of ways to get around things, or not. I think that as an educator, you need to let your students understand that what they use is for instruction and education.

With my background in graphic design, the subject of copyright comes up quite often. I remember as an undergrad, we were allowed to use images from the Internet. But the professor always reminded us that since we were students, we were using it for instruction, and that it was okay. But once we decided to take that work public, we needed to get permission.

Copyright laws are a difficult topic, with many different rules and regulations.