Case+53+-+Mr.+Met's+Baseball+Geography

 Mr. Met wants to get his fourth grade students excited about using the interactive whiteboard in their classroom. He decides that a good area to integrate this technology is his social studies block. Specifically, he wants to be able to have his students learn about the geography of the Midwest.

Wanting to be topical and tap into his students’ love of sports, Mr. Met uses baseball as part of his lesson. He projects a map of the United States on his whiteboard and then adds the logos of the Major League Baseball teams that play in the Midwest on the side of the map. Since he is using his whiteboard area as a technology center, he invites a group of students to come up and use the whiteboard to click and drag the logos to their correct location (city) on the map. The students can also use the stand-alone computer in this center to conduct research on the Internet.

The students are really excited to begin their work. As one of the students begins to drag the Kansas City Royals logo to its correct location, another fourth grade teacher, Miss Ouri, visits the room and sees the excitement. She pulls Mr. Met on the side and tells him that he should shut the screen down before he gets in big trouble. When Mr. Met questions why, Miss Ouri tells him that the her son’s little league baseball team once used the real names of teams but stopped because they got sued by Major League Baseball. Mr. Met panics at first, but then tells Miss Ouri that he is okay because of “fair use.” Is Mr. Met right?

// Commentary: Mr. Met has correctly invoked “fair use.” Mr. Met is not using the baseball logos for profit or for commercial use (factor 1). Instead, he is using the logos to allow his students to make real world connections. Secondly, the logos are factual and important to the objectives of the lesson (factor 2). Thirdly, Mr. Met is only utilizing the logos needed for a particular region. He is not using all images and logos that are available at mlb.com or any other baseball website (factor 3). Finally, Mr. Met is not negatively impacting the potential market for these copyrighted images (factor 4). He may actually be enhancing their value by exposing his students to teams they may not be familiar with. //

__Additional Commentary__

Mr. Met is protected by fair use, as correctly established by the above commentary. There is no commercial use, or altering of the logos with fictional locations. Miss Ouri's son's league may have use the logos to name the various teams, which would not be covered by fair use. It is not being used for educational purposes (violating Factor One), or they may have needed to use all of the logos to outfit the different teams participating in the other divisions of the little league organization (Factor 3). They are also copyrighted logos that will be reproduced on clothing for players to wear. Once the team's season is finished, the students can wear parts of their uniform, which will negatively impact potential market, since the Baseball Clubs in the MLB make money on sportswear sold to their fans (Factor 4). This is a much different situation than the one that Mr. Met is dealing with.