Notes for Course Facilitator

Summary: 

This page provides content regarding Copyright, Fair Use, and Intellectual Property ideas.

Gentle reminder: Update all content highlighted in yellow to reflect your institution.

Faculty teaching online courses face the exciting prospect of designing, maintaining, and conducting courses in an ever-developing medium. While this medium opens new, unlimited opportunities, it also poses many questions about how to present materials to students within the legal parameters of copyright laws.

Copyright laws exist in the United States to protect the rights of the creators of original works such as novels, films, musical works, photographs, etc. The laws grant the copyright owner the exclusive rights to reproduce, create a derivative work, distribute, perform, and display the copyrighted material. In addition, the copyright owner can determine who is authorized to use the work. Copyright is automatic once the work is captured in a fixed format (e.g., text or recording), and the copyright symbol is not required in order to signify that the work has been copyrighted.

As you’re developing your online course, you may want to include content such as music, text, graphics, illustrations, articles, and photographs, all items that are protected under copyright law. Unless specifically stated somewhere within the work that copying or duplication is allowed without approval, permission to use a work is the safest course of action. For specific information related to copyright at academic institutions, watch the brief Copyright on Campus video created by the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), a not-for-profit organization that provides licensing for the reproduction and distribution of copyrighted materials. Acknowledging the source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining permission.

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If you locate a work that you would like to use in your course, do not immediately assume your request to the copyright owner will be denied. In fact, it is surprising how many faculty are granted permission to use materials upon their first request. If you request to use a work and receive permission to do so, be sure to keep a record for your files. To help manage these permissions, we recommend that you create a folder called copyright permissions in your Files. Place a copy of each permission you receive in this folder.

A model copyright permission letter is available for your use.

If you are unable to obtain copyright permission, seek an alternative solution such as exploring the many resources for open or free content that are listed below in the Instructional Strategies and Best Practices section.

If you really feel that you want to use this copyrighted work, you may see if the doctrine of fair use (described below) applies to your situation. 

 


Fair Use

The Fair Use doctrine is a provision of copyright law designed to allow the limited use of copyrighted work without the permission of the copyright owner. It was developed with education in mind and is specifically applicable to teaching, research, scholarship, comment, criticism, or news reporting.

Four specific factors must be considered in each instance to determine if Fair Use applies. Each of the four factors must be applied and weighed together to make a case for Fair Use:

When including portions of copyrighted materials under the Fair Use guidelines, you must identify the following information for each piece:

  1. The source from which the material was taken
  2. The copyright holder
  3. Year of the material's publication
  4. Copyright notice ( i.e., The '©' symbol)

Review the <Replace with Institution Fair Use Guidelines for Educational Multimedia> provided by the legal department at <Replace - Institution Name>. These pages provide common copyright questions and answers that you are most likely to encounter while teaching online.

The key to successfully navigating these guidelines is to know and understand your rights and responsibilities as an online instructor. The safest course of action is to always request permission to use a work. 

 


Intellectual Property

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Instructional Strategies & Best Practices

 


Optional Further Reading

Creative Commons License

TOPKit Sample Course was prepared by the University of Central Florida (UCF). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.