Case+26+-+Mrs.+K.'s+French+Class

Mrs. K’s French Class

Mrs. K. is a World Language teacher at James Caldwell High School. For the past three years she has taught Advanced Placement (AP) French. Students who take AP French have the choice to take the AP French test. (An advanced placement test is an optional test that can lead to college credit.) The school has purchased a class set of books for the teacher to utilize in teaching the class. Included with the set is one teacher CD. The CD is meant to be played aloud to the class and is practice for the test. The problem Mrs. K. has run into is that due to the fact only a few students choose to take the AP test, playing it aloud during class is disruptive to the other students. The solution Mrs. K. has come up with is to “rip: the CD into her music file on her computer. She then makes a copy of the file and places it in an All Students folder on the computer. (This makes it accessible to any student who is logged onto a school computer.) Utilizing headphones the 4 or 5 students who are planning on taking the test are able to practice during class time while Mrs. K. continues her lessons with the rest of the students. Once the students have completed the practice test Mrs. K. deletes the audio files from the All Students folder.

Commentary

This is an example of Fair Use. First, the purpose of use was non-profit and educational. The copyrighted work was purchased intended for multiple listeners. And, the use of the CD did not affect the value. The CD is not sold as an individual unit, so the students have no other way of accessing the material. Deleting the file after its intended use will eliminate the chances of others using it for non-educational purposes.

I agree, this is an example of fair use. Mrs. K only intended to give the CD to four or five students. I really wouldn't recommend putting it on the share drive, however. She should have USB-ed the CD to those few students to make sure that no others would have access to it. However, I doubt that many students would download the CD from the share drive and use it wrongfully. I agree with the commentary above that Mrs. K should delete the CD from the share drive after its intended use.