Response
In November 2006 the U.S. Copyright Office issued an exemption to permit copying of clips or short portions of DVDs by film and media studies faculty. As a practical matter, when instructors teaching courses about film and media want to create compilations to use in the classroom this exemption allows them to do so without violating the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Some qualifying conditions must be met. The exemption narrowly targets "film and media studies" teaching. If your course is intended to explicate filmmaking technique, theory, style, or practice then it is likely that your teaching qualifies for the exemption. The fact that a course is taught under the aegis of a film or media study department may be less important than the reason for using the compilation in class. In the scenario above if the course used film clips simply to depict urban settings with no need to examine the film technique, camera effects etc. then the copying isn't likely to qualify for the exemption.

A second condition to be met is that the compilations are made from original DVDs owned by the college or university library that provides media collection support to the curriculum. If your department relies on the university's main library collections for access to DVDs for use in the classroom these same DVDs may be used to create the compilation.

Response:
Works of art and architecture that are not in the public domain may still be available to copy in the form of a photographic image. Photographic reproductions are generally lower-quality and would not likely compete in the same market as the original (if they do, as might be the case with reproducing photographs or digital images, use would likely not be permitted). When deciding if and how to use photographic reproductions of works of art, you should conduct a four-factor fair use analysis for each reproduction.

Also, remember that peoples' faces may not appear in photographs that will be publicly displayed without a signed release. The University's Office of the General Counsel maintains an online Standard Contracts Library, which offers the standard form, Release Photographic Likeness Use. If this form is not what you're looking for, feel free to contact the Office of the General Counsel directly.

Response:
Making a personal copy of a copyrighted work for research and reference is a fair use.

Response:
Because the use occurs in the face-to-face classroom, the instructor does not need to seek permission to use the copyrighted photographs and music files. Displaying or performing copyrighted works for classroom purposes is allowed under section 110 of U.S. Copyright Law.

In addition, changes made to enhance his instructional purpose, e.g. commentary, criticism, even parody, are activities allowed under the fair use provision.

Response:
Traditionally libraries have provided short term, limited access to materials selected by instructors. Electronic reserve systems exploit new technologies that enhance reserve service and deliver 24/7 remote access to authorized, registered students. Applying the fair use provision of copyright law is critical in library electronic reserve services.

Instructors submitting materials to be posted on the Library's eReserve system are responsible for evaluating, on a case-by-case basis, whether the use of each copyrighted work requires permission or qualifies as fair use. When permissions are needed, instructors or their departments can contact the Copyright Permissions Center for assistance.

Response:
The University of Minnesota's Copyright Permissions Center can provide assistance with getting permissions to use copyrighted works in coursepacks that are purchased by students.

Response:
Using digital versions of audiovisual materials for instruction depends on a careful four-factor fair use analysis. And, because fair userequires case-by-case analysis the instructor would need to consider separately each movie clip included on the DVD, paying attention to the size of each clip and its relationship to the essence of the film. In general, films are creative in nature and this would weigh against fair use at the second factor (i.e., "nature of the work"). However, if the instructor uses only small, discrete portions necessary for the instructional purpose, this could weigh in favor of fair use at the third factor (i.e., "amount and substantiality of the portion used"). After conducting a four-factor fair use analysis, if the instructor chooses to proceed with the use, she should advise her students against further distribution and the copyright status of each of the works on the DVD.

Response:
It depends. Authors, at the point of a work's creation, hold the exclusive rights given to copyright owners to reproduce and distribute the work (see Copyright Ownership). However, in the pre-publication process, many authors transfer all or part of their copyright of a manuscript to the publisher, who may request or require the exclusive rights to publish and distribute the work. When these rights are transferred to the publisher, then the author may only copy and distribute the work with permission from the publisher, or after a determination that fair use, a limited exception to the copyright holder's rights, would apply.

In this case, it is important to review and negotiate publication agreements. Publishers of scholarly and academic journals will each have their own default policies regarding author rights. The SHERPA Project in the UK maintains a searchable database of publisher copyright policies from more than 100 academic publishers throughout the world.

For authors entering into publication agreements, Kenneth D. Crews' "Reserving Rights of Use in Works Submitted for Publication: Negotiating Publishing Agreements" is highly recommended.

A faculty member records a segment of the evening news on her home VCR and the next day shows the recording to her class. Afterward she selects a 2 minute clip from the segment to burn onto DVD for future classroom presentations.

Response

Off-air videorecording is subject to the same copyright considerations that any other media used in classroom instruction would be. News broadcasts are copyrighted, usually by the producing network. Before using home recordings in a classroom presentation instructors should conduct a thorough four factor analyis to determine if fair use might apply to the circumstances.

In this particular instance the faculty member may find that her initial use of the recording is a fair use. But any subsequent use, even the short 2 minute clip, would require another four factor analysis. Circumstances surrounding any use can change over time. For example, the network may later make the segment available commercially, on DVD. This condition could compel the faculty member to purchase the DVD from the network rather than rely on her homemade DVD copy for instructional use. In general anolog to digital conversions are not permitted when content is commercially available in digital formats.

A faculty member's departmental library holds several older VHS videocassettes that are used regularly for classroom presentations. The videos are no longer available commercially in either VHS or DVD formats. The faculty member wants to create a compilation of clips by converting segments of the VHS tapes to digital form, and then burning the clips onto DVD for use in classroom lectures.

Response

When audiovisual media is commercially available in digital formats converting an analog versions to digital format is not good practice. To take advantage of the fair use provision in copyright law users are expected to acquire authorized copies, i.e. commercially distributed copies, to use in any follow-on work.

The fact that a video is out-of-print and no longer distributed commercially isn't, alone, sufficient reason to assume copying or converting is permissible. It is an element of the market effect of a use to consider, in a thorough four factor analyis of fair use. In this case creating the clip compilation may be fair use but because fair use is determined on an individual case basis it is necessay to analyze the use of each clip from the four-factor pespective.

Note: Fair use, as a matter of general principle, is medium neutral. In this scenario the fact that the copying involves format conversion effects only one factor, market effect. The purpose for the copying, the nature of the orginal clips, and the size of the clips to be copied remain important to the overall balance of a four factor analysis.

An instructor copies the papers submitted by the students in her class and brings them to the Libraries to place on reserve. Does the instructor need permission from each student to copy their paper and share it with others?

Response

The students' papers are copyrighted and each of the students will own the copyright to their papers. The instructor will need permission from each student to copy the papers. She should get the permissions before bringing the papers to the Libraries.

If an instructor gets permission to copy a student authored work for use in Libraries reserves, she would need new permission to use the work again during any subsequent academic term.

Please note: Certain uses of student work may require compliance with the Regents Policy on Student Records and the Family Educational Rights Privacy Act (FERPA).

A researcher would like to use excerpts from an unpublished work in an article. He intends to publish the article in an edited collection of critical essays.

Response:

Even though the work is unpublished, it is still copyrighted. Copyright is assigned to all original works of authorship, including letters, as soon as they are "fixed in a tangible medium of expression." Therefore, the researcher should consider whether or not his use falls within fair use. A four-factor fair use analysis will need to be conducted for each work, considering how much of the work will be used and what the potential market effects may be.

Response:
Reproducing portions of a copyrighted work for the purposes of comment and criticism are often allowed under fair use. A four-factor fair use analysis will need to be conducted for each excerpt from each song used in the article. Factors such as length of the excerpt should be considered; using shorter segments that include only the lines necessary for the purpose of the article will lead to a more favorable fair use determination.

Response:
The University of Minnesota Regents Policy on Intellectual Property states that "[a] regular academic work product is owned by the creator and not the University." Course materials are usually "regular academic work products" if they have been created by an instructor in the course of her traditional teaching activities. If, however, the work is established in a written agreement to be a "specially commissioned work," the University may retain copyright ownership. For more information on ownership of your original works of authorship, see Owning Your Copyright.

Response:
Copyrighted journal articles available through licensed electronic resources are subject to the terms of the license agreement between the library and the journal publishers. To understand some of the limitations and restrictions that may be contained in license agreements University users should familiarize themselves with general terms of license agreements. Often these agreements will not allow downloading of content and reposting it to another server. So, creating persistent links to articles, or to the library's licensed source and storing those links in the database would be the way for a study group to proceed.

Scanning hard copy of journal articles for inclusion in the database would be a matter involving either getting permission or four-factor fair use analysis for the use of each article. And, any use of the articles by members of the group should be limited to non-commercial, educational, or personal research purposes. Furthermore access to the database must be restricted to members of the study group only. Such a database should not be made generally available to the Internet user community.