At Redwood High School we are concerned about teaching our students to behave responsibly in an electronic environment. We expect students to respect the integrity of intellectual property.

The following are guidelines to aid you in creating research products using technology. They summarize and quote from the Fair Use Guidelines for Multimedia - http://www.libraries.psu.edu/mtss/fairuse/guidelinedoc.html - produced by the Consortium of College and University Media Centers in 1996. For more information about proper citation format, check our Bibliographic Format Page.

Educators are encouraged to read the full document for guidelines affecting instructional use of multimedia. Teachers should be cautious about copyright when showing videos to classes. Videos in our library have been purchased with public performance rights. 

Multimedia Projects (using presentation software)

The rule of thumb for multimedia projects is to “be conservative.” Use only small amounts of the works of others. Do not make any unnecessary copies--no more than two “use copies” and one additional back-up copy. (If a group created the project, each major contributor may make his or her own copy but only for the purpose for which the project was originally created.)

Crediting Sources

Students should credit all sources of copyrighted information with full bibliographic citations, including author, title, publisher, and place and date of publication, URL, etc. This bibliographic information may be combined and shown in a separate section of the project, for instance, a works cited card or slide. (There are exceptions for images when used for distance learning.) If the copyright notice © and copyright ownership information is shown in the original source, students must show it in their credits.

If there is a possibility that students will later use their multimedia project in another way, for example dissemination on the Web, they should take steps to obtain permissions for all copyrighted portions while the project is being developed rather than waiting until the project is completed.

Portions Used

Text

• Up to 10% or 1000 words, whichever is less of a copyrighted work
• Poems: The entire poem if less than 250 words - 250 words or less if using a longer poem
• No more than 5 poems (or excerpts) of different poets, from an anthology
• No more than 3 poems (or excerpts) by one poet

• Up to 10% of a copyrighted musical composition, but no more than 30 seconds from an individual musical work
• Any alterations cannot change the basic melody or the fundamental character of the work

• A photograph or illustration may be used in its entirety
• No more than 5 images by an artist or photographer
• No more than 10% or no more than 15 images of a collective work

• Up to 10% of a copyrighted work or 3 minutes, whichever is less
• Numerical Data Sets
• Up to 10% or 2500 fields or cell entries, whichever is less, from a copyrighted database or data table

Care should be used in downloading material from Internet sites for use in multimedia presentations. Students should be aware that some copyrighted works have been posted to the Internet without authorization of the copyright holder.

Integrity of the copyrighted work: alterations

Educators and students may make alterations in the portions of the copyrighted works used in an academic multimedia project only if the alterations support specific instructional objectives. All alterations must be noted.

Permission is required:

• For multimedia projects used for non-educational or commercial purposes
• For duplication or distribution of multimedia projects beyond limitations outlined above (posting on the Web, for example)
• When distributing the project over an electronic network

Publishing on the Web

Here's a template of a letter you might mail or e-mail requesting permission to use copyrighted work.