Case+44-+Rome+wasnt+built+in+a+day!

Scenario

Mrs. Rossi is 3rd year Italian teacher in New Jersey. She teaches middle school students and her primary goal is to incorporate technology on a daily basis in a creative medium. Her laptop, projector and Smartboard are used every day along with multi-media presentations to engage students. Most of her Powerpoint presentations are built upon facts and copyrighted images taken from many sources on the Internet. A recent unit’s focus was “A Tour of Rome” and the web offered numerous panoramic images of the Colosseum, Roman Forum, Circus Maximus, the Trevi Fountain and St. Peter’s Basilica. To add some flair, a small clip from “A Roman Holiday” was also added to the presentation. After virtually “touring” Rome, students were able to view the presentation at home which had been uploaded Mrs. Rossi’s Google Docs class page and review the details and architecture of Ancient and modern Rome.

Commentary

Mrs. Rossi was fully aware that the images were copyrighted but is not in violation for using the effective PowerPoint presentation because it was created and shared for educational purposes. At no point was it used for profit, published for commercial use, or publicly distributed. The images were not all taken from the same photographer and she complied with the guideline that no more that five images by a photographer may be reproduced or otherwise incorporated. It is also highly unlikely that it was interfering with the copyright owner's ability to market the original work. The favored brevity of the incorporated movie clip falls within the specific parameters of The Guidelines for Fair Use and Educational Multimedia and complies with Guideline 4.2.1 and its portion limitations. According to the Fair Use doctrine, copyrighted material can be used without permission or payment in an educational setting and therefore no laws were broken.