**Copyright Law And Education As Classrooms Move Online**
AALL Compiles COVID-19 Resources. The American Association of Law Libraries compiled a list of COVID-19 resources to help others navigate working and learning remotely. The list includes a blog series by AALL member Kyle K. Courtney which provides guidance on remote learning. Courtney reminds readers in his first post that “libraries and archives have ‘superpowers’ under the copyright law that allows us to supply our communities with access to materials for research, scholarship, and study.
Libraries Moving Story Time Online Is A Fair Use. In an online Q&A about local libraries and fair use, the American Library Association’s Carrie Russell says that now, more than ever, sharing story times digitally benefits society. She notes that fair use “by design” is flexible, and that there is a growing consensus among copyright experts that posting online story times to continue mission-driven library and educational services during the coronavirus emergency is a fair use. Russell does caution that efforts should also be taken to restrict access and further distribution of the story time to the public.
Teachers Face Copyright Conundrums In Online Teaching. Can a teacher read a book aloud to students while streaming? Can a professor send course materials to college students who left their books behind? As teachers have shifted to online learning in recent weeks, Bloomberg Law profiles how the pandemic “highlights some uncertainties about how copyright law applies to common educational practices”. One law professor received copyright challenges on a YouTube 2-hour lecture because short music clips were included, while film professors have been at a loss on how to teach. Meanwhile, copyright librarians and advisors have been trying to provide guidance to educators at all levels.
When It Comes To Distance Learning, Fair Use Favors Flexibility. In a column about emergency distance learning and fair use, copyright legal expert Heidi Tandy writes that fair use gives broad latitude for many kinds of classroom uses. She cites a specific provision of the Copyright Act that “explicitly says that neither teachers nor students infringe on copyright when using a work ‘in the course of the face-to-face teaching activities of a non-profit educational institution, in a classroom or similar place devoted to instruction.’” Tandy concludes that many instances of internet-based teaching qualify as a “similar place devoted to instruction.”