Case+46-+Ms.S's+Copyright+Conundrum

Ms. S. decides to enhance the district’s Writer’s Workshop Personal Narrative curriculum by including fan-fiction work into the writing. She decides to use the book by Jeff Kinney, “Diary of A Wimpy Kid” as a model for personal narratives and as a base to enhance the story. First, she reads the story to the class. Then, she points out the basic stick figure pictures included that go along with the text. This is one of the basic skills from Writer’s Workshop to include drawings with their story to help the students formulate their words. Then she assigns a few scenarios the students will be able to choose to do with the book, for example:

The student will be able to:


 * Insert themselves into the storyline. Write, type and draw about what they would do or say with the main character;
 * Write, type and draw a new beginning to the story;
 * Write, type and draw a new ending to the story.

To support the students on their assignment, she distributes a copied section of the book so that the students may refer to it when working on their own piece. She’s not sure if this is allowed under the Fair Use category or not, but decides that it is for educational purposes and does it anyway.To determine if Ms. S. is under the law of fair use of another person’s work that has a copyright, one must review the “Four Factors” that judges review to make their decision.

The Four Factors are as follows:  1. The transformative factor: Is the assignment adding new expression or meaning to the original? Was value added to the original work by creating new information, insights and/or understandings of the original work? a. The teacher’s assignment clearly is in the scope of changing the original material to include personal enhancements and creative changes. By adding a new beginning or ending to the story, students will have to create their own spin on the main character. They will also add to illustrations to correlate to their twist to the original. By inserting themselves into a part of the story, they are creating a piece that is personal to them.

2. The nature of the copyrighted work? a. Since the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” is a published piece it is easier to fall under the fair use category.

3. The amount taken from the original- a. Since only a piece of the original story will be copied and distributed for reference for educational purposes, it would probably adhere to the fair use laws.

4. The effect of the use on the potential market- <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Bright','serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Bright'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Lucida Bright'; msobidifontfamily: 'Lucida Bright'; msofareastfontfamily: 'Lucida Bright'; msolist: Ignore;">a. <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Bright','serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">This assignment would probably have a positive impact on the author’s market share as it is good marketing for it in the school. Friends of the students may buy it out of curiosity to find out why everyone is talking about it. The assignment would not take away any potential earnings from the author, it would only have a positive effect because of the potential of others buying the books.

Based on these four factors, any judge that would review a case such as this would have to agree that Ms. S’s usage of “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” by Jeff Kinney does invoke the “Fair Use” exemption under the copyright laws.