bleckblog: musings of a community college english teacher

The below is an article draft for Pacific View. It's, I'm, not able to take into account many of the complexities of the argument, because I don't have the space, and I also don't have the time to do much more than I have done here. Still, the fundamental argument that many publishers assert greater copyrights than they have is not a new one, and not at all uncommon. These assertions scare of legitimate use for teaching. That these assertions infringe upon constitutional rights is widely dismissed when it comes to crafting policy, more because people and institutions want to cover their butts and avoid legal troubles. Publishing interests are more likely to fight, and generally have deeper pockets than colleges and universities for this sort of thing. Generally, academe has been cowed by threats from the commercial sector. Here's what I wrote:

If you happened to be looking for an article for your students to discuss in class, you might find yourself at some place such as the Seattle Times website, seattletimes.nwsource.com. Finding the right article, you’re likely to hit “print view,” but when you do, this is what you see: “Permission to reprint or copy this article or photo, other than personal use, must be obtained from The Seattle Times. Call . . . or e-mail . . . with your request.”

If you’re like most people, the message may give you pause, and rightly so, but for all the wrong reasons. Few of us have time to request permission and no one wants to get in trouble for not doing so. Newspapers can afford lawyers, and faculty have to hope their institution will back them should a problem occur. But these are not the fundamental problems with claims of this sort. The first is that it is a lie. The second, which is what makes it a lie, is that it contravenes fair use as described in the United States Code. Too many educators are scared off by claims of this sort. You shouldn’t be.

While the Seattle Times Company does own copyright to the articles and photos on their site and in their paper, copyright is not absolute, especially when it comes to education. Here’s what Title 17, Chapter 1, Subsection 107 of the United States Code says about the matter:

The fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means . . . for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.

That’s right, fair use within education allows for multiple copies for classroom use, but you wouldn’t know that by reading what the Times posted on their site, or by reading most college and university copying policies for that matter. Faculty can make copies for classroom use, with no prescribed limits in the U.S. Code. Despite this, most colleges and universities err greatly on the side of caution, producing guidelines intended to protect themselves from lawsuits rather than protecting the rights of faculty, staff and students.

According to the Fair Use website at Stanford University, some of the “restrictions” include copying no more than 250 words of a poem, 2500 words of an article or essay, more than one work an author per term, and making such copies no more than nine times a term. These restrictions were negotiated between publishing concerns and a variety of academic organizations.

I’m not a lawyer, and I don’t play one on television. Despite that, I’m among a number of those who argue that you can copy class sets of complete articles, essays, poems and the like, as long as it’s for teaching and you don’t profit or undermine the author’s ability to profit. However, don’t take my word for anything here, but the quote from the U.S. Code. Similarly, don’t take anyone else’s word on this matter without looking into your rights. No one is legally bound by the above restrictions because copying articles for classroom use is your right. Don’t be afraid to use it.