Building on Activity 12A, students apply the last two fair use factors to a particular scenario that parallels a real court case. They also predict how a judge ruled in a similar real case.
Other activities in this series: Activities 12A, Fair Use Factors 1&2; Activity 12C, Judge’s Decision on Fair Use.
Learning Outcomes
Students will be able to:
- List the factors of fair use.
- Apply the amount of use and effect of use factors of fair use to a hypothetical scenario.
Relevant Threshold Concepts
- Information has value.
Suggestions for Use
- This activity should be helpful in classes where students may be using copyrighted works for presentations or other multimedia projects.
- This activity should follow Activity 12A and be followed by Activity 12C.
- Although U.S. copyright law provides exclusive rights to creators, the fair use exception often applies to the academic work of students who want to use materials copyrighted by others. Basic knowledge of fair use will help students make ethical and thoughtful choices about their use of copyrighted media and text in assignments and in their careers after college.
Pre-Class Preparation
- Review the copies of Handout 12A you collected from students or groups.
- Review In-Class Procedure below.
- Read Chapter 12, Fair Use, of Choosing & Using Sources, if you haven’t already.
- Consider assigning students to read before class Chapter 12, Fair Use, of Choosing & Using Sources, if you haven’t already.
- Download and/or print In-Class Procedure so you can take it with you to class.
In-Class Procedure
- If your students worked in groups for Activity 12A, ask them to get into the same groups for this activity.
- Distribute completed Handout 12A-1 that you collected at the end of Activity 12A to individual students or to groups.
- Introduce students to the activity by saying that this is a continuation of the earlier activity on fair use factors. So this time, they should complete the handout for Factors 3 and 4. In addition, they should answer the question at the bottom of the handout about whether a judge hearing the case described in the scenario would find for or against fair use, based on the factors. Give them 5 minutes to complete the handout.
- After 5 minutes, take up Factor 3 and ask a few students (or groups) to report which elements they decided are relevant in this case and why. Do the same for Factor 4.
- Remind students to make a prediction at the bottom of the handout and give them a moment to do so, if necessary.
- Ask students to make sure their names or group numbers are on their completed Handout 12A-1.
- Collect the handouts for use in Activity 12C.
Relevant Choosing & Using Sources Chapters:
Chapter 12, Fair Use.
Credit: Marley Nelson and Maria Scheid of the Copyright Resources Center at the Ohio State University Libraries contributed to this activity.
