Everyone agreed: The student's work was outstanding. Asked by his social
studies teacher to present an argument for a presidential candidate, the
10th-grader picked Bob Dole and displayed his project on a web page.
"It looked really beautiful," says Joyce Valenza, the librarian
at Wissahickon High School near Philadelphia. "And we were just blown
away because it looked so professional."
As it turned out, it was professional -- or, at least, good portions
of it were. The student had simply downloaded photos, graphics, and text
from the Dole campaign's official web site. The boy felt vaguely uneasy
about copying the text, Valenza says, but was proud of his work overall.
"His face just dropped when we said, 'It isn't right.'"
It isn't right, and it isn't legal, to violate copyright -- to reproduce
and distribute someone else's work without permission, thus denying the
creator a chance to make a profit. But while most teachers -- and quite
a few of their students -- know it's wrong to make 30 copies of a workbook
rather than buying enough for the entire class, many think nothing of copying
text and graphics from the Internet and pasting them on their own web sites.
They don't realize that the same rules that cover print, recordings, and
videotape also apply to computer software and Internet sites.
Not all board policies recognize that fact, either. If your school board
is grappling with copyright policies concerning the Internet, it's a good
idea to enlist the aid of your school attorney -- and to learn the rudiments
of copyright in the cyber age.
"Copyright's the kind of thing you've got to kind of parade out
before your staff every year and go over," says Ted Czajkowski, assistant
superintendent of the Bellingham (Wash.)
School District, whose Internet site contains its extensive copyright
policy. Many teachers may have an informal -- and inaccurate -- understanding
of the issue, says Czajkowski: "Their memory is, 'As long as it's for
educational purposes, you can do anything.' And, of course, that isn't the
case."
Changing times
If you doubt the seriousness of the issue, you need only follow the dispute
over a bill in the U. S. House of Representatives aimed at protecting the
rights of software companies (see sidebar). Hailed as long overdue by the
Software Publishers Association, the bill has been criticized by several
education groups for undermining "fair use," the doctrine that,
among other things, protects the right of teachers to use copyrighted material
for educational purposes.
But both sides agree that advances in computer technology have led to
new violations of copyright and that the law needs clarification.
"There is an assumption that just because you can do it, it's all
right to do it," says Valenza, who adds that she is something of a
taskmaster when it comes to educating students about copyright.
"The previous norm was, 'Take it. It's free,'" says technology
consultant Jamie McKenzie, who wrote the Bellingham schools' guidelines
when he was an administrator there. "When the web became much more
corporate and influenced by Madison Avenue -- when it became graphic, essentially
-- the cultural norms changed."
A study commissioned by the Software Publishers Association estimated
that the industry lost $11 billion worldwide in 1996 and $2 billion in the
United States alone due to copyright violations, says Mark Traphagen, the
group's vice president and general counsel. "One of the problems the
software industry has faced over the years is, it's so easy to make copies,
particularly in the workplace," Traphagen says.
Few public school systems have been sued for copyright infringement,
but that doesn't mean that it isn't a potential problem in the digital age,
says Margaret-Ann F. Howie, legal counsel for the Baltimore County Schools
and author of Copyright Issues in Schools.
"It's always safer to know what the landscape is," Howie says.
"Just because the issue is litigated more at the university level than
at the K-12 level, [that] does not preclude us from being vulnerable."
What the law says
The United States has had a copyright law since 1790, Howie says in her
book, and in 200-plus years, the law has been extensively updated only four
times. The law protects eight types of works: literary works; musical works;
dramatic works; pantomimes and choreographic works; pictorial, graphic,
and sculptural works; movies and other audiovisual works; sound recordings;
and architectural works.
The "fair use" doctrine allows individuals to reproduce copyrighted
material -- with some limits -- for a public purpose that does not hurt
the market for the material, Howie says. The idea of fair use, then, can
be a defense against charges of copyright infringement.
While Congress has set no precise definition of fair use, the law cites
four issues to consider in determining if fair use exists: the purpose and
character of the use, the nature of the copyrighted work, the amount used,
and the affect on the work's potential market value.
Guidelines were approved in 1996 at a Conference on Fair Use (CONFU),
a meeting of librarians, software producers, university officials, and other
interested parties. However, portions of the guidelines have been criticized
by education organizations as being overly restrictive and a hindrance to
interdisciplinary instruction.
Among the guidelines some educators consider too restrictive are those
concerning book and movie reproduction. The guidelines say students and
teachers may use 10 percent or 1,000 words of a book (whichever is less),
and 10 percent or three minutes of a movie (also whichever is less).
When it comes to the Internet and web sites, copyright laws may not be
specific, but they still apply, Howie says. She urges districts to adopt
written copyright policies and to designate an administrator to educate
the staff and monitor compliance.
"Yes, it adds a bureaucratic layer, but it also adds a defense to
school systems that permit an employee to print copyrighted material,"
Howie says. "There are times when bureaucracy makes sense. This is
one of them."
Fair use generally allows students and teachers to copy web-site material
for use in their classrooms. But if they want to distribute the information
-- for example, by putting it on a web page -- they are in effect publishing
and must seek permission from the web site owner.
Kathleen B. Schrock, technology department head for the Dennis-Yarmouth
Regional School District in Massachusetts, says companies are often "overjoyed"
to learn that their material has an educational use.
"Turn it into a positive," Schrock says. "Ask permission.
Tell them how you're using it. Companies are more than willing to give permission."
In addition to seeking permission, users need to cite the source of the
information on their web sites, just as they would include footnotes in
a research paper. And finally, if a school or a district wants to put a
student's work on a web page, it needs to get permission from the student
and his or her parents, if the student is under 18. Whether it's a multimillion
dollar movie or a kindergartner's drawing of a cow, it's protected by copyright.
Ethical, moral, legal
Schrock and Valenza know what it's like to
have their work copied illegally. Both librarians operate extensive web
sites devoted to school technology issues, and both have seen portions of
their sites appear on others' web pages.
How much work does that represent? Schrock considers the time it took
to build her site, which includes attractive graphics of pencils and an
old-fashioned schoolhouse and links to scores of other sites: "Two
hours every day since June 1,1995."
Examples like these lead Valenza to call copyright infringement an ethical
and moral issue, not just a legal one. She and Schrock say that teachers,
librarians, and administrators need to model good behavior in this area,
just as they would in other aspects of school life.
Before the digital age, librarians were the "gatekeepers" of
information. "Now everyone's their own consumer," Schrock says,
"so everyone must be caught up to speed."
Enlightening students and teachers to the issues is essential, as is
backing up the information with sound board policies. But like so many ethical
questions, the ultimate responsibility lies with the individual.
"At least they know what the right thing to do is," Valenza
says, "[even though] they may not always do it."
Lawrence Hardy is an associate editor of Electronic School and The American School
Board Journal. | 
