Sherma Edwards 1

DETT 611 Section, 9040

Sherma Edwards
DETT 611 Section, 9040
March 22, 2015
Case Study

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DETT 611 Section, 9040

Introduction
The use of case studies is quite vital in higher education institutions. Case studies are
used for research, teaching or learning purposes. As part of the learning process, case studies
encourage students to evaluate and to develop critical thinking skills through analysis and
rational. However, assessing copyrighted polices and its issues in distance education (DE) can
become an overwhelming task because the language can be unclear to the reader. Nonetheless,
this paper introduces two scenarios and the goal is to compare, contrast and to address the
copyright laws and issues in both scenarios.
Scenario one (S1): An instructor scans an entire book he has authored onto a password protected
website for students in his class even though the publisher holds the copyright.
Scenario two (S2): A student scans Dilbert cartoons from the newspaper and uploads them onto
a webpage.
Copyright Issues
Copyright is a form of legal protection that allows authors, photographers, composers,
and other creators to control some reproduction and distribution of their work (EU, 2014, para
2). Copyright holders have rights and authority to reproduce, prepare, distribute, publicly
perform or display work (EU, 2014, para 3), however there are exemptions and limitations to
these rights that include the fair use provision, Technology, Education, and Copyright
Harmonization Act, 2002 (TEACH ACT), Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), teacher
exception or exemption, Digital Rights Management (DRM) and the options provided by the
Creative Commons (CC) licenses. According to both scenarios, all of these issues are exhibited.
Fair Use

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Fair use is one of the most important limitations to exist. (UMUC, 2015). Fair use will
apply to S1 and S2 as long as the instructor and student is following the four guidelines that
include purpose and character, nature of copyrighted work, amount and substantiality of the
portion used and the effect of use on the potential market of copyrighted work (UMUC, 2015,
para. 2). The reviewer has examined the policy issues based on the information provided in both
cases; therefore S1 does violate the provisions under the fair use policy. This is concluded
because the instructor is the author of the book but the publisher is the copyright holder. The
instructors usage has exceeded the reasonable expectation when he scanned the entire book
and this is not considered fair use.
As for S2, since the individual is a student, it is okay to assume the Dilbert cartoons are
for educational purposes or classroom usage, however, if it was not used for that purpose, this
doesnt not fall under the fair use criteria and permission will need to be granted (Universal
Uclick, 2015). The student took the material from a newspaper, to upload to a website and not
from Universal Uclick who is the copyright holder; this in itself is another huge issue and does
violate both fair use and DMCA.
DMCA
The 1976 Copyright Act, was implemented before the Internet existed so the DMCA was
passed in 1998 to cater to the digital domain (EU, 2014, para 14). The DMCA was created to
protect the online service provider and not service users (EU, 2014). As a result, in S2, the
student did not adhere to the copyright law and will face infringement by Universal Uclick. In
accordance to this act, Universal Uclick has a strict policy regarding infringement (Dilbert,

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2015). In S1, the instructor may be protected by the DMCA based on the guidelines illustrated by
his or her place of employment or university.
TEACH Act
The TEACH Act was created and does give educators the right to display copyrighted
works in DE institutions but also under the fair use doctrine (EU, 2014). Therefore, as already
discussed both scenarios will be in violation.
Teacher Exemption/Exception
For example, at the State of New York (SUNY) there is a common-law exemption to
the work-for hire rule for faculty work that is embedded in SUNYs copyright policy, giving the
faculty ownership to his or her work and privileges to related licenses(Edwards, 2015, p.4).n
Other institutions like SUNY may follow this same protocol. Therefore in S1, the instructor is
the writer of the book but does not own the copyright. Hypothetically, the publisher can be the
institution where he or she is employed as a faculty or due to a work made for hire doctrine.
Technically the instructor can use the copyrighted material but he or she will still need to follow
those guidelines set by the copyright holder if he or she is to use the teacher exemption policy. If
these guidelines are not followed then this may result in conflicting issues. Especially if the
instructor is no longer employed at the existing university and adding a copy of an entire
copyrighted book to a password protected website for students is not a good idea. In S2, no
issues will apply with this policy.
DRM

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DRM technology is used to control access to, track and limit uses of digital works
(American Library Association, 2015, para.1). The consumer in S1 will be the students however,
it was already suggested that the instructor is in violation of the copyright laws unless additional
information is given then the instructor may have a right to exercise the DRM policy. In S2 if the
student had requested permission of the Dilbert cartoons the right way, he or she will be limited
to only seven cartoons for the year per their fair use policy (Universal Uclick, 2015). Outside of
those parameters, once permission is granted and more than seven cartoons are needed then the
student will be assessed a twenty five dollar fee per cartoon (Universal Uclick, 2015).
Creative Commons Licenses
CC licenses allow works to be recycled or republished per the guidelines set by the
creator (Carroll, 2007). In S1, the publisher can be a third party and copyright holder who has
given open access to this book via the Internet or institutional repositories. In scholarly work and
research, it will be the learner or researchers responsibility to appropriately cite this work.
Conclusion
It is the responsibility of the institution that awareness and initiatives about copyright
policies and laws are addressed in hope of minimizing infringement, because there are many
scenarios that may impact the policy. The use of case studies will allow and reviewer or
researcher to develop a holistic approach and view of the phenomenon in question.

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References
American Library Association. (2015) Digital rights management and libraries-DRM. Retrieved
from http://www.ala.org/advocacy/copyright/digitalrights
Carroll, M. W. (2007, April). Creative Commons as a conversational copyright. Villanova
University Legal Working Paper Series. Retrieved
from http://law.bepress.com/villanovalwps/papers/art71
Dilbert. (2015). Terms and conditions. Retrieved from http://dilbert.com/terms
Edwards, S. (2015). Ownership policy critique-The state of new york. Paper submitted as an
Assignment 2 for DETT 611. Spring 2015
Eastern University. (2014). Copyright law. Retrieved from
http://www.eastern.edu/library/copyright-law
Lynch, C. (2009). The changing of scholarly communication in the digital age. Retrieved from
https://mediamatrix.tamu.edu/download_published_file.php?
published_file_id=224135&title=The_Changing_of_Scholarly_Communication_in_the_
Digital_Age%2C_Part_7
The State of New York. (2015). Copyright and faculty ownership of intellectual property.
Retrieved from http://system.suny.edu/academic-affairs/faculty/faculty-ownership/
University of Maryland University College. (2015). Copyright and fair use in the UMUC online

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or face to face classroom. Retrieved from

http://www.umuc.edu/library/libhow/copyright.cfm#teachact
U.S. Copyright Office. ( 2012). Works made for hire Retrieved from
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ09pdf.
Universal Uclick. (2015) Educational/classroom usage. Retrieved from
http://www.universaluclick.com/licensing_permissions/educational_use