Case+31-+Mrs.+Duque+play+script

//Case Study// Mrs. Duque is a 3rd grade teacher at a public school. After school she privately tutors a 9 year old girl that attends a catholic school. The public school that Mrs. Duque works for uses the Scott Forcesman reading series for the 3rd grade classes. Mrs. Duque is planning on a school play for her class to perform. One day after school while tutoring, she finds a play script in the McGraw Hill reading series that is used in the catholic school that her private tutoring student attends. The play script is titled __The Strongest One__ by Joseph Bruchac. That day Mrs. Duque searches the internet to see if she could purchase the play book. After hours of searching she realized that the play script was written for McGraw Hill only. The next day Mrs. Duque decides on photocopying the play from the McGraw Hill anthology text book omitting the copyright page that gives credit to the author. She then made 21 copies of the script. (1 copy for each of her students.) Mrs. Duque plans on having her 3rd grade class perform the play at school for parents and students to watch. After her class performs the play she will throw the copies away and never use the play again. Though Mrs. Duque is using the play script for educational purposes, she feels as though she might be violating copyright laws since her school did not purchase the McGraw Hill reading series.

//Commentary// Mrs. Duque is clearly in violation of Fair Use and Copyright Laws. First, the play script was copied from an anthology textbook that was not purchased by the school in which she teaches. This is an infringement on one of the four factors of copyright which is the effect of the use on the potential market for the copyrighted work. Secondly, Copyright Laws protect materials such as plays from being performed in public. Since Mrs. Duque did not get permission from the author for the play script, it is illegal for her students to perform the play in a public setting. Thirdly, Mrs. Duque photocopied the entire script. The copies did not include a notice of copyright acknowledging the author of the work. After reviewing the guidelines it is clear that Mrs. Duque violated the Fair Use and Copyright Laws.