In the article, The Educator's Guide to Copyright and Fair Use, the author explains fair use and copyright laws in a five part series. The article states that copyrighting information is illegal and should never be done under any circumstances. The author explains that it is important for all individuals to be familiar with copyright laws. If you are using information from a website it is important to give credit to the author who's website you are using. The author should always be given recognition for the work they put out. In the article, there are 4 factors that are must be identified to determine if something falls under fair use. The first thing you need to do is identify the purpose of the content. You must determine the reason of the copyrighted work, which means seeing if it is needed or not. The amount of copyrighted work used is important too. Finally, the effect of you using the work on the potential market needs to be considered as well. If copyrighted work is used to appeal to other audiences it may be thought of as fair use (Education World). It is also important never to post copyrighted material on the internet. Teacher should be educated in copyright laws because if they post something copyrighted then they could get in trouble. These guidelines tell teachers how to properly show information to students, and they explain to them what ways to show it so that no laws are violated. School districts are considered responsible for any copyrighted violations that occur within that district. For this reason, it is imperative that teachers not only know the rules for themselves, but also for their students.
