Case+17-+Jane's+editorial+Dilemma

Jane is a 12th grade journalism teacher. In the following week’s lesson she will be teaching students how to put together a newsletter. She is enhancing her class experience by using technology in the classroom. While putting together the week’s lesson on her home computer she reprints an editorial she likes from a daily newspaper. Other than using this editorial for the purpose of teaching the structure of the newsletter she is also concerned with the content. The editorial is called: “The essence of good journalism”. The editorial explains that good journalism is not only about knowing how to ask the right questions but how to report them as well. The newspaper she is using is approximately a year old and it is probably not available any longer. There is no copyright warning about reproducing the editorial. However, she thought because it was for educational use, it was ok to use. After finishing the example of the newsletter she makes several copies to distribute to her students. She plans to use this example for the upcoming terms as well. Commentary ** After reading the four factors that are use in determining the fair use, we can say this is fair use. What we find here is that Jane is a teacher; applying rule number one, is it commercial in nature or is for non-profit educational purposes. Since it is for educational purposes this rules in favor of fair use. Rule number two the nature of the content; this is a factual/non fiction published work. This also rules in favor of fair use. The third rule refers to how much of the content we are using compare to the whole work. She is only using one small editorial in relation to an entire newspaper. Therefore this is acceptable under the fair use. Finally the last rule wants us to determine how is this going to affect the market or value of the copyrighted work. The newspaper is a year old, it is no longer published and hard to find, so there is no effect in the market value. Since it is no longer being sold and/or publish this also falls under the fair use. With these conditions we conclude that Jane can use this editorial without violating any copyright laws.
 * Jane’s editorial dilemma**