I am old enough to know when email was a very novel way of communicating, and I not so fondly remember spending hours in the library photocopying vast amounts of material from bound journals and reference books for my thesis. And then the world drastically changed in September of 1998 when Google was born. Being able to search the world from the comfort of our computer dramatically changed the way information is shared. This has had tremendous impact on our way of life, for the good and the bad.
One of the good things is the ability to find an abundance of material for teaching. Sometimes sorting through all the material is overwhelming. But as educators when we do find what we need it is very important to treat all the material that we use with ‘fair dealing’. So what does this mean?
Fair dealing is an exception in copyright law in Canada, which allows the use of material that is copyrighted without permission or payment of copyright royalties. This includes all types of material from books to music to videos, newspapers, etc. This greatly eases the use of vast amounts of material for educational or other purposes. But when using material under fair dealing there are several considerations that must be followed to fall within allowable fair dealing.
The first and foremost is that you must mention the source and author of the material. Give credit where credit is due. We all want to recognize others for their contributions, just as we like to be recognized for our own work. And then we must ask a series of questions to determine if our use falls under fair dealing.
What is the purpose of the dealing? Is it for commercial purposes or educational use? Educational use in the classroom is considered fair dealing. Also use for things like research, criticism, news reports, and parody are accepted under fair dealing.
What is the character of the dealing? This considers how the work is used. Are we going to post it to a very popular website? Will we put it into a document that is distributed to a large number of people? These may not be considered fair dealing. Or will it be used for our own use in our classroom only? Posting short excerpts from material on restricted learning management systems is also acceptable.
What is the amount of the dealing? Fair dealing allows up to 10% of a work to be copied. So if using a novel or story in a class, up to 10% of it would be used. But if material is marked for one time use, copying of this material is not acceptable.
Are their alternatives to using the material? In many cases there probably are alternative materials, but if fair justification of the use can be made, it would probably be acceptable.
What is the nature of the work? If the work has not been published you may use it under fair dealing, but if your use would contribute to a much wider distribution of the work, it may not be fair dealing.
Would your use affect or compete with the marketing or salability of the original work? Would it diminish the author’s income from the work? If so, this is not fair dealing.
If you need help deciding if your use of the material constitutes fair dealing, try using a tool such as the ‘Fair Dealing Decision Tool’ which can be found at http://www.fairdealingdecisiontool.ca/DecisionTool/. It will guide you through questions to determine if you fall under fair dealing. Also beware that ‘fair dealing’ can vary from country to country, and ‘fair use’ in the United States does differ from fair dealing in Canada. If you decide that you cannot fulfill the fair dealing requirements, then you must receive permission from the author/owner and possibly pay fees to use the copyright material.
Creative Commons licensing is another way to allow others to use material that you have created or lets you know how you can use other people’s material. There are various Creative Commons licensing levels which can allow use, but with some restrictions, such as for only non-commercial purposes. You can find out more information, and learn how to register your license at https://creativecommons.org.
Public domain allows unrestricted use of material, and applies to material that you or others allow to become public domain and also material that is older than 70 years past the death of the author. You do not need to obtain permission to use public domain works, not do you need to attribute them to anyone.
Using materials that others have created makes it much easier for ESL teachers, and it allows us to access the creativity of many other people, but we must be mindful that we are using these materials in the proper way and within the laws of Canada.
References:
How to give attribution. Creative Commons. Retrieved from https://creativecommons.org/use-remix/get-permission/
Noel, W., & Snel, J. (2016). Copyright Matters!: Some Key Issues Questions & Answers for Teachers.
The Copyright Decision Tool. The Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC). Retrieved from http://copyrightdecisiontool.ca/DecisionTool/
What is fair dealing and how does it relate to copyright? Simon Fraser University. Retrieved from http://www.lib.sfu.ca/help/academic- integrity/copyright/fair-dealing
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