Copyright and Fair Use Checklist

Things to Check for When Using Someone Else’s Work

If the work is protected
• The owner of protected work may:
o Reproduce his/her work
o Build off of the original work
o Distribute and/or publish work
o Publicly perform and/or display work

There is a law that applies strictly to educators; The TEACH Act
• This distinct set of rights applies only to work used in the classroom
• It applies to all mediums
• Teachers still need to follow copyright and fair use laws

When using material/work for classrooms:
• Materials/Work should be limited to:
o Single chapters
o Single articles
o Several charts, graphs, and/or illustrations
o Other small parts of work
• Copyright notice and/or proper citation(s) should be included

Other’s work should be:
• Used Sparingly! Your own work should be used when at all possible.
• Cited properly at all times.

Other’s work should not be:
• Used for commercial purposes without approval

The punishment for deliberate infringement can be up to $150,000.

Copyright crash course: the teach act finally becomes law. (2002, November 13). Retrieved from http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/teachact.htm

Harper, Georgia K. (2001). Crash course in copyright. Retrieved from http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/cprtindx.htm#top