To those interested in copyright law:
There are two principles for interpreting copyright law that apply to
eduction. At least that is the limit of my "not a lawyer" knowledge. First
is the "face to face teaching" exclusion. There are several specific parts
to the exclusion but basically you are allowed to _show_ but not copy
videos etc. That assumes, of course, that you don't advertise, show it in a
"normal classroom" setting (or one routinely used for class/education) and
have a _legal_ (meaning you bought it) copy of the video. I'd assume that
same exclusion would apply to cartoons assuming it is available on a
"projectable" format- else, you'll have to get permission. The second
principle is "fair use". It is rather technical and ambiguous. Four
questions must be answered for fair use to be allowed. The questions
address several issues but the main ones we (educators) tend to violate
are: 1) amount of the original used (sorry, a whole cartoon would clearly
violate this criteria!), 2) impinging on the authors/owners ability to
generate income (i.e., if you give it away and you don't own it you have
violated the copyright holders right to sell that copy). The fines for
_each_ violation are rather limited _in principle_ to the damage done
(i.e., if you give away a cartoon that wouldn't be much of a fine- however,
some courts have been more lenient in their interpretation of punitive
damages and have allowed some rather substantial sums to be given for
seemingly "trivial" damage to earning potential. There are several very
helpful sites on the web regarding copyright law. One of the best is at the
library of Congress site.
Tim Shearon (I have some of those sites bookmarked at school. If you want
to know them e-mail me and I'll get them to you on Monday.)
______________________________________________________________________
Timothy O. Shearon, Ph.D.
Albertson College of Idaho
2112 Cleveland Blvd
Caldwell, Idaho 83605
Department of Psychology
Physiological Psychology/Neuroscience
"We're viruses with shoes!" - Bill Hicks, comedian
