Case+33+-+Mr.+Johnson's+Math+Problem

Mr. Johnson is a high school mathematics teacher. As a teacher of Algebra II, he often hears complaints from his students about the lack of usage in real life settings for much of the material that is in the curriculum. In order to combat these complaints/criticisms, Mr. Johnson has tried to tie in as many word problems into his lessons and assessments as possible, so that his students can see some real-world situations in which the lessons can be applied to. The problem that he has come across, however, is that the textbook that he uses in class only has 2-3 word problem examples for each chapter, and they are not very interesting or relevant problems in his mind. For this reason, Mr. Johnson often relies on some Websites that contain Algebra worksheets for sale. Since he does not want to use the entire worksheet/Webpage, he typically just takes one or two problems from these sources to copy onto his own worksheets to provide educational examples for his students. For this reason, he feels that this is legal. //Commentary // Using the four standards for determination of the fair use exemption, it appears that this is an example of Fair Use. The main standard that applies is the Purpose of the use, which states that as long as the copied parts of copyrighted works is used specifically for educational purposes, it is Fair Use. Also the Proportion/Extent of the material standard backs up the idea that Mr. Johnson only uses small parts of a much larger copyrighted source. Finally, there would be no reduction in sales of the work, because the students would not purchase these worksheets, and neither would Mr. Johnson, as he only uses a small portion of what is published. For these reasons, his practices fall under Fair Use. Mr. Johnson should cite the web pages that he uses in order for this to be considered Fair Use. 

Alex Mahony