Case+05-Mrs.+Lennon-Getting+to+the+“Roots”+of+the+Slavery+Issue!

Mrs. Lennon is an 8th grade history teacher. Each year, Mrs. Lennon teaches an in-depth look at slavery in the United States. She spends a great deal of care and effort preparing for this unit in hopes of building student’s critical thinking skills. One of the most important aspects to her unit is having students discuss and document how slaves used passive and non-passive ways to resisting slavery. In one lesson, Mrs. Lennon shows students the mini-series “Roots" so students may see the hardships of slavery and also how slaves resisted. She paid $55 of her own money for the DVD, but worries every time the copyright message pops up at the beginning of the movie. It says she cannot show to audiences. She isn’t charging her audience and it is for educational purposes, not for just for enjoyment, so Mrs. Lennon feels she isn’t breaking the law.
 * //__Mrs. Lennon-Getting to the “Roots” of the Slavery Issue”__//**

Mrs. Lennon also uses the National Geographic webquest on the Underground Railroad. Students take on the role of a runaway slave and are given several scenarios for escaping, including being recaptured. It is a great site for building critical thinking skills. The morning she scheduled to do the webquest, Mrs. Lennon found out that the district’s Internet would be down for at least a week due to a break in security. She decided to print out the webquest from her home computer and make 25 printed copies for her students. She included the title page that gave credit to the site but she also included the correct works cited information. Mrs. Lennon will collect the packet at the end of each class to use for her other classes. She doesn’t want her students to miss out on the “rich’ Information on this site. She doesn’t intend to give the students these copies and after all, this is a free web quest for educational use and she is using it for that purpose.

Mrs. Lennon is not violating any Fair Use or Copyright Laws. Mrs. Lennon legally purchased a copy of “Roots.” It was the original packaged DVD set. According to Fair Use guidelines for teachers ([|www.halldavidson.com]), Mrs. Lennon may use a DVD in the classroom without restrictions of length or multiple uses. She legitimately purchased the DVD set and the movie is being shown for instructional and educational purposes, not entertainment. A school is also a non-profit organization.
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Mrs. Lennon did not violate any copyright laws by printing out the webquest. The copies were made for a non-profit organization and used for educational purposes not for entertainment. The amount of the web quest is a mere fraction of National Geographic’s online site. This webquest is free and intended for educational purposes and student use. Mrs. Lennon only made 25 copies for her 150 students and collected all the copies from her students. She only made the copies because the school’s server would be down for at least a week, if not more, and she needed to conclude her slavery unit. This would not discourage the future use of this webquest (obviously Mrs. Lennon uses this website for building critical skills but also for the technological aspect) and will not harm National Geographic financially.

Kerri Freda