Case+18+-+Mr+Barry's+Predicament

Mr Barry teaches 12th grade Geography at a local High School in New Jersey. He teaches students using all kinds of software, books and research material via the Internet. He recently came across an article titled “Global Warming: Fact or Fiction” as featured in a National Geographic article he found at the local public library. He would like to use part of the article as an example of the seriousness of Global Warming and its effects on world climate. He typically asks his students to point out the facts and the opinions in an article and then write a paper that explains the important issues. As for the Global warming article, he specifically wanted them to discuss the facts, and then explain what they would do to reduce it if they were in control of the known sources of climate change.

The school where he teaches has some serious budget issues and he is afraid he may not be able to pay the fees or buy multiple copies of it and is afraid to ask for permission wondering if they will officially deny him the use of the article. He figures since its an educational related article they would not sue him or the school but at the same time its is a well know article that has gained prominence and has recognition, to add to that the writer is well renowned and has published his findings, statistics, data and graphs in the article. The entire article contains about 10,000 words he is using an excerpt of about 500 words, he would make about 100 copied for his 3 class sessions. He heard of recent crack down on schools and individual about copyright violations and he does not know how to go about finding if what he is doing is right or wrong.


 * __Commentary__**:

Mr Barry has many factors that favor him in what he intends doing. Firstly, he is using the article from a Library and libraries are exempt from certain copyrights law that others must abide by. He is using the article for educational purposes and is not profiting from its copies. He is using only a portion of the entire article less than 10%. [Fair Use rules regarding magazines and newspaper articles allow ** Multiple copies of complete work of less than 2,500 words and excerpts up to 1,000 words or 10% of work, whichever is less – as per the website resource ** A Teacher's Guide to Fair Use and Copyright ** ]

Although Mr Barry can buy the entire magazine he would be unnecessarily burdened by the cost, either to himself or the school and not using it would deny the students of the article that would help tomorrow's students to be better stewards and responsible citizens of the world. This seems to be a clear example of Fair use. **

Glen Emmanuele