Copyright laws are so complex. Most people do not fully understand if they are violating copyright laws or not. Most of the time people will simply assume they are in violation of a copyright law and either do not care, have rectified the situation and paid the appropriate parties, or have taken the proper actions to verify that what they are doing falls under fair use. Fair use involves using works for education, news reporting, commenting, or parody. Even then, the laws of fair use are strict and minimize the new creators use.
A while back I learned that if a parody of the work is created, the creator of the new piece does not violate the copyright laws. I.e. Spaceballs as a comedic parody of Star Wars. I also knew that teachers may use parts of work for educational purposes.
This being said, I had no idea how little an educator is permitted to use before infringing on copyright law. I did not know that teacher can only use 10% of a work, or only a chapter of a book. Educators can only use 250 words from a poem, and may only copy the same work nine times in a semester. Visit http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/curr280b.shtml and scroll down to the “Guidelines For Educators” section for more information.
Finally, how can we talk about Copyright without discussing the “Happy Birthday To You” song? For years, Warner Brothers has received up to $2 million worth of royalties, yearly, for the song. As of just last year, “Happy Birthday To You” has been ruled public works. Now people may use the birthday song without the needing to pay Warner Brothers. See http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-happy-birthday-song-lawsuit-decision-20150922-story.html for the complete article.
Copyright and Fair Use Animation by Common Sense Media
Copyright: Forever Less One Day by CGP Grey
the hidden pineapple 
I wondered about the happy bday song. I knew that was why businesses couldn’t sing it but I wasn’t aware that it was PW now. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
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I was also surprise to find out how copyright laws affect educators, and how limited we are in using outside material in our lesson plans. Last semester, I presented direct and cooperative learning lessons using videos and images. Now, I’m thinking, did I make the right chose in using those videos? Its going to be hard to find content we can use, but now we can move on with caution.
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Thank you for clearing up the Happy birthday tune issue!!! I had no idea that it is now considered Public Works! Does that mean restaurants can go back to singing the regular version instead of the overly wordy versions to avoid breaking the law??
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I’m so scared of this copywright madness. I’m positive I have violated it several times. Does this make me a criminal? Do I have to pay a fine? I guess I understand why the copyright laws exist, I just believe maybe that law should be waved in the spectrum of education. Why would you not want your work to be used in order to educate minds?
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