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The fair use of copyrighted materials for education is not an explicitly defined system. And, the complicated questions about what is and what is not allowed accelerate with media literacy education. Can a student use a popular hip hop song for her math video? Did a lesson plan with material the school had licensed get distributed at a conference? Can the video that is legal to use in a classroom project be widely posted on the web?
For help with the answers, the Center for Social Media has published Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education. The guide identifies five principles that represent the media literacy education community’s current consensus about acceptable practices for the fair use of copyrighted materials, wherever and however it occurs: in K–12 education, in higher education, in nonprofit organizations that offer programs for children and youth, and in adult education. The guidelines apply to all forms of media.
It addresses:
- Employing copyrighted material in media literacy lessons
- Employing copyrighted material in preparing curriculum materials
- Sharing media literacy curriculum materials
- Student use of copyrighted materials in their own academic and creative work
- Developing audiences for student work.
The authors express concern that fear of copyright infringement might impede important media literacy lessons, and they offer common myths about fair use.
