An overview of Copyright Law and Distance Education

Abstract

T HE COPYRIGHT ACT OF 1976 did not anticipate copy machines, scanners, or new technologies that would change our ideas of instructional space, making the globe our classroom. The amendments (Section 110) to the Copyright Act give faculty a certain degree of freedom in using copyrighted materials copyrighted books, slides, videos, sound recordings, and other media--in their classes. The Fair Use Doctrine established criteria to determine fair use and the amount of reproduction (mostly by photocopying) of copyrighted materials for educational and scholarly purposes. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 sought to fill in loopholes in the copyright law and promote distance education through digital technologies, including interactive digital networks, while balancing between the fights of copyright owners and the needs of users of copyrighted works. However, there were too many copyright issues that couldn't be resolved at the time. It was then left to publishers, government personnel, educators, authors, and others to work toward an acceptable solution. Until then, fair use remains a critical part of distance education. Performance and display in instruction, other educational uses of works (the provision of supplementary materials), or student downloading of course materials will continue to be subject to the fair use doctrine. It is the responsibility of the campus community to identify whether a portion of a certain copyrighted work in coursepacks, multimedia projects, and on Web sites constitutes fair use of a work. Therefore,