Copyright, Copyright Act of 1976, and Federal Copyright Law

While policymakers pay much attention to copyrights, exceptions to copyright protection also promote innovation and are a major catalyst of U.S. economic growth. Specific exceptions to copyright protection under U.S. and international law, generally classified under the broad heading of Fair Use, are vital to any industries and stimulate growth across the economy. Companies benefiting from fair use generate substantial revenue, employ millions of workers, and, in 2006,represented one-sixth of total U.S. GDP.

Under guidelines published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), economic activity associated with copyrights has been studied extensively. To date, however, the economic contribution of industries dependent on fair use has not been quantified. Thus, a primary objective of this study is to fill the gap and provide an initial assessment of the economic contribution generated by companies benefiting from fair use. Fair use is an important restriction to the rights conferred on original works by the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976: "The fair use of a copyrighted work ... is not an infringement of copyright." The fair use doctrine, and other limitations and exceptions, have grown in importance with the rise of the digital economy, as fair use permits a range of activities that are critical to many high technology businesses and are an important foundation of the Internet economy.

The beneficiaries of fair use encompass a broad range of companies, particularly those whose business activities involve the Internet, as well as consumers. The ubiquity of the Internet means that its benefits are widespread as well.

Three recent appellate decisions concerning fair use should give educators and librarians greater confidence and guidance for asserting this important privilege. In all three decisions, the courts permitted extensive copying and display in the commercial context because the uses involved repurposing and recontextualization. The reasoning of these opinions could have far-reaching implications in the educational environment.

The fundamental goals of media literacy education -- to cultivate critical thinking about media and its role in culture and society and to strengthen creative communication skills -- are compromised by unnecessary copyright restrictions and lack of understanding about copyright law, as interviews with dozens of teachers and makers of media literacy curriculum materials showed.
In K-12, higher education, and after-school programs and workshops, teachers face conflicting information about their rights, and their students' rights, to quote copyrighted material. They also confront complex, restrictive copyright policies in their own institutions. As a result, teachers use less effective teaching techniques, teach and transmit erroneous copyright information, fail to share innovative instructional approaches, and do not take advantage of new digital platforms.
This is not only unfortunate but unnecessary, since copyright law permits a wide range of uses of copyrighted material without permission or payment. Educational exemptions sit within a far broader landscape of fair use. However, educators today have no shared understanding of what constitutes acceptable fair use practices.
Media literacy educators can address this problem with the same techniques they use in their work: increasing shared knowledge. Like other creative communities, such as documentary filmmakers, media literacy educators from K-12 to university level can articulate their own shared understandings of appropriate fair use in a code of practice. This code can educate not only themselves and their colleagues, but their students and administrators. Finally, their code can guide and instruct other educators, in formal and informal settings, who use copyrighted material in their teaching for a wide range of educational purposes and goals.