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Because Copyright Law in general and Fair Use in particular are such complicated concepts, different bodies have sought to make usage easier and more consistent through guidelines. Congress included a set of guidelines with the Copyright Act of 1976.
Part of these guidelines dealt with copying books and periodicals in non-profit educational institutions (H.R. 94-1476). Although these guidelines were generally accepted and widely applied, by the 1990's many thought that additional direction was needed, especially for the use of digital works in education. From 1995 to 1997, members of the Conference on Fair Use (CONFU) met to draft such guidelines. The members of CONFU could not, however, reach a consensus with respect to the guidelines.
Another group, The Consortium of College and University Media Centers (CCUMC), led in the establishment of a set of copyright guidelines with a focus on higher education. Educators should be aware of the Fair Use Guidelines for Educational Multimedia. The CCUMC Professional Policies & Guidelines page references additional copyright resources and specifically has a PowerPoint presentation outlining these guidelines. Of course, if you prefer to cut-to-the-chase, use the Summary Index to Usable Portions of Copyrighted Works in conjunction with the Fair Use Guidelines document.
After being in use for years, guidelines generally have fallen out of favor because they are seen as too restrictive. They are not part of the law and do not have the force of law. (See the Ken Crews article on this topic, "The Law of Fair Use and the Illusion of Fair-Use Guidelines". Guidelines have been disregarded over the last few years in favor of the four factors. The sets of guidelines listed above do, however, provide a safe harbor for those who stay within them and are less likely to draw fire than basing your copyright decisions on the four factors.
The University of Texas copyright site does an excellent job exploring this topic. The background on CONFU and what it means is presented in CONFU: the Conference on Fair Use.
The Fair Use Guidelines for Educational Multimedia is then set in the larger context of UT's "Rules of Thumb" for Fair Use of Copyrighted Materials. Be aware, however, that many of the site's instructions are specific to UT and that although attributed to CONFU, the Fair Use Guidelines for Educational Multimedia never received consensus support by the group. |
