This document presents 10 scenarios involving potential copyright issues in educational settings. The scenarios cover issues such as copying poems for classroom use, using cartoons in newsletters, showing movies in class, recording TV programs, copying workbooks, posting student work online, and copying videos to different formats. Each scenario raises legal questions around what uses of copyrighted material are permitted or prohibited for educational purposes.

1. Copyright Law Scenarios What you should do, shouldn’t do and better not do.

2. Scenario 1 Ms. Gray is teaching metaphors and similes to her class. There are some good examples in her text but she has a college anthology with three great poems for teaching the subject. Can she make classroom copies of all three poems and distribute them to the class?

3. Scenario 2 While she is creating the end-of-year newsletter for her class, Ms. Teak finds a great cartoon of Snoopy waving goodbye. Since this is just going out to parents and will not go out over the website, is it OK for her to use the cartoon in her newsletter?

4. Scenario 3 While the PTO is meeting in the cafeteria, Mrs. Jakes, the principal, asks one of the teachers to let the children who came with the parents watch Toy Story in her classroom to keep them entertained during the meeting. Is this OK?

5. Scenario 4 Last night Mr. Cook taped a great program on the French Revolution that ran on NBC. He wants to show it to his French class tomorrow. They are currently studying the revolution and it would really bring it to life. Can he show it legally?

6. Scenario 5 For his American Lit class, Mr. Rey showed the newest version of the movie Of Mice & Men. He rented the movie from Blockbuster a couple of days before and created a full lesson plan with worksheets. His principal says he cannot legally show an entire movie to the class. Is she right?

7. Scenario 6 Ms. Clark wants to show Romeo & Juliet to her 9th graders who are studying the play. He loves the Zeffirelli version but it has a brief nude scene in it. The film teacher says he can edit out the offensive scene…problem solved. Or is it?

8. Scenario 7 Mrs. Walters is creating a PowerPoint to celebrate the end of school and to let the 5th graders know how much they will be missed. The slides are great and she has the perfect song, I Will Always Love You. Can she legally add the song to the presentation since it will just be shown in the school?

9. Scenario 8 Miss Patel has 23 workbooks for her classroom but budget cuts mean that she has 26 students. Since the school has paid for the use of the 23 notebooks can she legally make copies of the notebooks for the three extra students?

10. Scenario 9 Demario Means, a student in Mr. Fripp’s art class created a project on Impressionist Art that used examples of many paintings and was great. Mr. Fripp has asked that the PowerPoint be put on the school web site. Is this OK?

11. Scenario 10 The library has a copy of “Where the Wild Things Are” but it is on VHS tape. Since few teachers have tape players, the media specialist wants to create a DVD from the tape. Can she legally copy the tape to disk for use in the classroom?

12. This presentation was created for Chester County Schools by Michael C. Hill Instructional Technology Coach Use by permission only