Educational institutions continually work to balance between providing students with access to data and protecting copyright owner's exclusive rights. The Copyright Act of 1976, effective in 1978, provided exemptions for live and distance education. As digital technology grew in capability, its capabilities were incorporated in distance education,…

Copyright in the world of digital information is changing at a fevered pace, even as educators and librarians digitize, upload, download, draw on databases, and incorporate materials into Web-based instruction. It's essential to stay abreast of the basics of copyright law and fair use. Kenneth D. Crews has completely revised his classic text to…

Current copyright law was formulated before the digital technology became widely available and well before Web 2.0 changed the way that information is created and shared. J. Patrick McGrail and Ewa McGrail argue that copyright law has failed to keep up with the social and legal changes that have accompanied the technological developments of the…

Technology-mediated communication, or "new media," such as blogs, Twitter, wikis, and social network sites, can be an endless source of ideas for activities or inspiration for classroom discussion. Many instructors ask students to monitor current events by following keywords and industry leaders on Twitter and reading both corporate and…

Discusses the copyright law as it affects educators and examines the impact that new educational technologies are having on it. Topics addressed include rights of the copyright holder; challenges from distance learning, interactive video, and multimedia; fair use guidelines; and ethical and moral responsibilities of educators regarding copyright…

This report serves as an overview of intellectual property law, policies, and practices as they relate to distance learning. It seeks to provide background information and direction for the Florida Distance Learning Network and the Postsecondary Education Planning Commission's Task Force on Telecommunications. Several of the technologies used in…

When Lars Ulrich, drummer for the rock group Metallica, testified before Congress about his group's lawsuit against Napster in 2000, many people who followed copyright issues in the music industry were not surprised (Ulrich, 2000). Ever since downloading audio files became as easy as clicking a few buttons on a personal computer, charges of…

The Technology, Education, and Copyright Harmonization (TEACH) Act of 2002 was developed to update copyright law to accommodate the uses of copyrighted materials in distance-education environments. This article presents an analysis of the TEACH Act and its implications for teaching writing, with an aim toward building awareness among faculty and…

Thus far, there is little statistical evidence to show that new technologies have had an appreciable impact on the amount of learning that takes place in schools throughout the country. In order to find some of the causes of this lack and to point out policy questions in this area, the author surveys several issues in the field of new information…

The implications of the Copyright Revision Act of 1976 for the use of videotapes in the classroom is examined in light of the recent marketing of home videotaping units. Universal Studios vs Sony Corp. is discussed, along with problems that are left unresolved by the new copyright act. (BH)

The legality of certain teaching practices is being questioned. The controversy arises from the application of the 1909 copyright law to the use of the new copying technology. This information aid considers the current copyright law and the needs and practices of educators. The stickiest part of copyright law is the fair use doctrine, which allows…

The State of Minnesota is contemplating the establishment of a microwave system to transmit television signals between its institutions of higher learning. Factors to be considered in planning this educational interconnection system relate to the planning of similar systems and networks of systems by other aggregations of states, universities, and…