Wk1-Response to blog post #2

Wk1 Fair Use: When, where, how????

Alex Eller stated:

As a teacher in the CATE area of Graphic Design and Illustration and Print Imaging, Fair Use is a subject I've always wanted clarification on. And the summary of "Fair Use, if you are teaching a unit, can you teach the unit without the copyrighted material" was an eye opener.

One of my student's favorite projects is an introduction to Adobe CS5 Photoshop and delving in to possible career paths within the visual arts industry. For this unit, I take a head shot of the student. The student has to find a picture of someone doing what he/she would like to do within the industry and find another picture where they would like to do this career. They have to combine all three images in to one single seamless image. One that the viewer would look at and not be able to tell that someone didn't just happen along and take the picture. At first glance, a copyright advocate may look at this unit and say that the two pictures the student finds on the Internet are infringement. In my mind, I think that I can not send the student on a scavenger hunt to find a person doing what they would like to do when they graduate. Nor can I send a student to wherever they would like to do this career. So, am I safe? The student is using a partial of two different pictures plus one that I took. AND it is for a teaching assignment where the student is not going to make money off of it.

One of the resource videos that we watched really made me sad. It also brought home the point that some Fair Use, specially in the preservation of historical events is necessary!

I said:

Alex, you ask a tough question. I couldn't say whether you were safe or not. If I had to guess, I would say you would be ok because the pictures were used for educational purposes as Joe had outlined in his video overview of fairuse and there is no commercial use of the product. That sounds like a really cool project.