Copyright and schools

http://www.copyright.g​ov/title17/92chap1.htm​l#107

jbimages, I don't know much about international copyright law, so maybe you can help me out. As far as I know, in the US, if I am writing a report for school then I can include an image even if the copyright holder doesn't want me to. This enables people to use the work as an example while criticizing it which wouldn't be possible otherwise. There are restrictions on this use, but you can do quite a bit with a copyrighted work in an educational setting.

I don't think there is any validity to the part about anything on the web being fare game though. Outside of an educational setting printing an image you see on the web would be illegal. Having access to something doesn't mean you are authorized to use it. Thats what copyrights are all about.

Stocky wrote in post #5618830
I don't think there is any validity to the part about anything on the web being fare game though. Outside of an educational setting...

This is more what I meant, I just worded it extremely poorly. Whether you just found it on google images or not, I whole heartedly agree that any commercial use in any way is at the very least unethical, and in most cases illegal. But I don't find it unethical to use a picture to illustrate something for school kids, unless the picture is clearly copyrighted and/or available for sale for personal use. I just don't see the difference between being able to click a link and see a picture and printing a picture just because it's easier to pass around a piece of paper than it is a computer monitor.

I know that I'm wrong here when it comes to the letter of the law, but I think using freely available google images, images, for non commercial educational purposes is pretty harmless.

Stocky wrote in post #5618830
http://www.copyright.g​ov/title17/92chap1.htm​l#107

jbimages, I don't know much about international copyright law, so maybe you can help me out. As far as I know, in the US, if I am writing a report for school then I can include an image even if the copyright holder doesn't want me to. This enables people to use the work as an example while criticizing it which wouldn't be possible otherwise. There are restrictions on this use, but you can do quite a bit with a copyrighted work in an educational setting.

I don't think there is any validity to the part about anything on the web being fare game though. Outside of an educational setting printing an image you see on the web would be illegal. Having access to something doesn't mean you are authorized to use it. Thats what copyrights are all about.

There isn't an international copyright law. Countries have their their own laws, these is however a Berne Convention, and international agreement about copyright that dates from 1886. The wikipedia has a page on it and a number of external links.

An interesting quote from the article:

The United States initially refused to become party to the Convention, since it would have required major changes in its copyright law, particularly with regard to moral rights, removal of general requirement for registration of copyright works and elimination of mandatory copyright notice. This led to the Universal Copyright Convention in 1952, to accommodate the wishes of the US. But on March 1, 1989, the US "Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988" came into force and the United States became a party to the Berne Convention, making the Universal Copyright Convention obsolete.


There are a lot of myths about copyright. Brad Templeton collected 11 of them on this page http://www.templetons.​com/brad/copymyths.htm​l
The page is a bit dated as it was last revised in 2004 but it covers items from an American viewpoint.

As I previously noted, there is no 'fair use' clause in the Australian Copyright Law. We have a 'fair dealing' exemption, however that does not cover educational use.

There is a page on a fair use review by our Attorney General's Department that has a link at the bottom to a pdf document that has some interesting points. It cites examples of activities recognised by US courts as fair use.
For education it cites "reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson". Nowhere does it condone the use of the complete work. A photograph is a complete work.