Copyright and Fair Use
I chose to answer the question: I bought a music CD from Best Buy; can I make 10 copies of it for my friends?
NO! It’s not a educational, they’re not asking about using a small percentage, it’s not part of a project, and it does have an impact on the number of possible sales for the CD.
This isn’t the question I asked, but I chose to answer it because it is one (or something very similar) that has been asked many times. Particularly songs that have been downloaded - Since they paid for their original download, they seem to think that they can make as many copies as they want. That somehow because they are selecting what songs to put together onto a CD; it makes it their composition and OK?
I definitely think that some of the copyright questions are less clear, but this isn’t one of them.
I guess another question I have is what do you do if someone gives you a CD that they burned as a gift?
on October 22nd, 2007 at 7:52 pm
I have been pondering that same question myself ever since I received a burned CD last winter break from a colleague. I was polite and gracious, but was extremely conflicted. I didn’t feel that the exact moment that I was receiving a gift was the moment to “teach” fair use and copyright, but I have made a point since then to always model and remind my staff of fair use. I think one of the biggest issues is that most educators have seen poor practices modeled so often either at home or even within our work environment that it is really hard for them to accept that regardless of the fact that “everyone seems to do it” it is still not right.
on October 24th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
Anyone old enough to remember “mix tapes”? In ancient times, we used to record tracks from different records to a single tape. Sometimes the combination of songs had some meaning, sometimes not.
You might think giving a mix tape (or CD) to someone would violate copyright but there’s no specific prohibition in the law and several court cases over the decades have also been mixed in their rulings on this issue.
However, the no court has said it’s ok to make lots of copies of your mix tape and sell or give them away. Just one more interesting twist in copyright laws and the interpretation of them.