Freedom To Teach: an Educational Fair Use Project. http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/research/freedomtoteach#

Description:

Freedom to teach is a project conducted by The Berkman Center at Harvard University under the direction of Dr Lewis Hyde Berkman, Fellow. The project's initial goal is to develop a statement of best practices for Fair Use in higher education. The ultimate goal is to offer "clarity and agency to an area where confusion and caution are now the rule." The project's description and proposal include a step-by-step description of the actions that the project will be taking in order to create a statement of best practices that will be true and useful to those teaching in higher education.  The center will also include discussions and descriptions of items such as the history of Fair Use, the current problems with Fair Use and the issues identified as problematic with Fair Use guidelines. Dr. Hyde and his group also detail the need for change and clarification. Finally, the proposal explains the Best Practices Model and compares it with the research in current practice.

Analysis:

To understand the social value of the project being conducted at the Beckman Center, we could go back to Dr. Hyde's description of Fair Use as "a key part of the social bargain at the heart of copyright law.  The rights that this doctrine gives to the scholars, teachers, and creative artists in higher education only come to life, however, when they are understood, claimed, and used." Therefore, Dr. Hyde and his group feel certain that the doctrine will bring clarity and understanding to Fair Use while and allowing the current Fair Use law to be once more what it was intended to be: a source of protection for professors, scholars and teachers while permitting them to use copyrighted material in a way that would allow owners to exercise control of their intellectual property in all other areas of society.

The Pros and Cons of an 'Educational Fair Use' Lewis Hyde, Berkman Fellow, speaks on "The Pros and Cons of an 'Educational Fair Use' Project" http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interactive/events/luncheon/2008/02/hyde

Description

In this video The Berkman Center for Internet and society of Harvard University and Dr. Lewis Hyde are discussing the problems with the laws, guidelines and practices related to fair use in education. Dr. Hyde speaks of the historical and current confusion around fair use in education and the negative consequences that such confusion has created for professor and instructor in higher education. The impact as Dr. Hyde discusses can be found in areas such as free speech, academic freedom and the quality of instruction. At the same time, Lewis Hyde is calling for an educational fair use project to be conducted by educators who will have small groups that will use their classrooms and instructional needs as guidelines to determine what should or should not be fair use in education. Such a project will then be used to negotiate with owners in good faith and with the goal of community service in mind.

Analysis:

Dr. Lewis Hyde from the Berkman Center for Internet and Society of Harvard University is in this video advocating for changes and measures to prevent owners from eroding fair use, free speech and academic freedom. In his presentation, Dr. Hyde effectively documents the history that brought fair use to this point of conflict while at the same time attempts to clarify the laws that regulate copyrighting. Professor Hyde's presentation also very clearly describes step-by-step the guidelines that one could use in order to conduct a project for fair use in education.    

http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/resources/publications/code_for_media_literacy_education/ :

Discusses fair use in media literacy education, appropriate uses for educators and students of fair use when it comes to using copyrighted materials in order to teach media literacy.  It also clarifies what benchmarks are as used by lawyers and judges to decide what is fair use as well as the myths and facts about fair use in the classroom. Finally, it encourages educators to be leaders, not followers in the process of establishing the best practices of fair use in education.

Analysis:

The article is aimed at educators with the purpose to educate teachers about the guidelines of fair use in the classroom.  The principal goal of the article is to encourage educators to use technology in the classroom and to contribute to the current dialog and process of establishing best practices in fair use in education and  in particular media literacy. The underlying goal of the article is to call on educators (uses) to participate in the conversation about fair use in order to create an environment where all educators feel more comfortable using the media and therefore, have students and the public in general take advantage of the benefits of media literacy.