Summary of Multimedia Fair Use Guidelines

These summary guidelines are based on those published in the fall of 1996 for the Conference on Fair Use (CONFU) by the Consortium of College and University Media Centers (CCUMC). Much of this summary was prepared by the attorneys of the University of Texas System for their Copyright Management Center. It can be found along with other documents on their Web site. As the Texas attorneys acknowledge, these guidelines are controversial and are regarded by many in the education and library communities as too restrictive. Please see the University of Texas site mentioned above and Haverford's copyright page for fuller treatment of the topic.

Students may incorporate others' works into their multimedia creations and perform and display them for academic assignments
Faculty may incorporate others' works into their multimedia creations
- to create multimedia curriculum materials
- to teach remote classes where access and total number of students are limited AND WHERE technology makes copying of the material impossible
  - if materials can be copied, they may only be made available over thenetwork only for the semester in which the course is being taught
Faculty may demonstrate their multimedia creations at professional symposia and retain same in their own portfolios
Time limit on fair use: 2 years from completion of the multimedia work
Copies limit: generally, only 2, but joint work creators may each have a copy
Cumulative portion limits:
- motion media - up to 10% or 3 minutes, whichever is less
- text - up to 10% or 1000 words, whichever is less
  - poem - up to 250 words, but further limited to:
    - three poems or portions of poems by one poet; or
    - five poems or portions of poems by different poets from an anthology
- music - up to 10% or 30 seconds, whichever is less
- photos and images - up to 5 works from one author; up to 10% or 15 works, whichever is less, from a collection
- database information - up to 10% or 2500 fields or cell entries, whichever is less

Procedural reminders:

Exercise caution in using digital material downloaded from the Internet because the network offers a mix of works protected by copyright and works in the public domain.
Properly attribute material you link to and properly cite material you copy into your project.
Seek permission from copyright holders if you want to exceed fair use guidelines in your project or think that you ever might.
Include on the opening screen of your project notice that certain materials are included under the fair use exemption of the US Copyright Law.
Make alterations tocopyrighted works only if the alterations support specific instructional objectives. Note that alterations have been made.
If you can, buy and use images that are already digitized. If you cannot, then limit access to images to students in your class and terminate access at the end of the semester.