Case+47-+Mr.+Y's+HSPA+Math

__Scenario:__ Mr. Y is a high school Math teacher preparing to teach a lesson in a HSPA Mathematics preparation course. The school district for which Mr. Y works for has consulted with a private company that specializes in providing students with tips for succeeding on standardized tests. Mr. Y has been directed to their website and has been given a login code to access material that has been published by this company. Mr. Y logs in to the company’s website and notices that several problems that appear on the website are ‘very similar’ to problems that have been published by other publishing companies. While the problems may be quite similar in their wording, the numbers have been changed in many of the problems. Mr. Y decides to print out problems from the website for use in class after being assured by his supervisor of the educational purpose of the problems.

__Commentary:__ While the company is developing material for educational purposes, the company uses copyright material as part of the services that they provide. The company does make a profit and therefore is most likely in violation of the Fair Use principles. While using other companies’ problems as a reference, they should substantially change the wording of the problems to reflect originality and not pose copyright issues. The teacher, however, is not in violation of Fair Use principles as he is using the problems for educational purposes, and is using it on a limited basis. The teacher should probably be aware that the company may be infringing on copyright laws and should refrain from using those specific problems.