Borrowing Media from around the World: School Libraries and Copyright Law

This article examines worldwide copyright law from the point of view of the school librarian. Like many other countries, the United States belongs to a number of international copyright organizations involved in intellectual property issues within and beyond its boundaries. The goal of copyright compliance is considered using US intellectual property law as an example with the following questions as starting points. (a) Can students legally borrow music from the Internet to add to a class project if the selected Web site comes from a country other than their own? (b) Is it acceptable for a teacher to make class copies of an article that he or she read in a foreign journal for use in his or her classroom? (c) Are Internet entities such as blogs, wikis, and social interaction sites copyrighted? If so, how does this affect educators (and students) who use them? These examples will help readers to understand their responsibilities in relation to national and international copyright laws. Introduction Copyright law in the school library environment is a gray, cloudy entity with many interpretations. Add to this the fact that internationally there is no single copyright law, and the confusion grows. The result for countless school librarians worldwide is uncertainty and the hope that they are doing the right thing and giving the correct advice in their libraries and for their patrons: students, teachers, and administration. This article attempts to elucidate certain positions in international copyright agreements from the point of view of United States copyright law and those international organizations to which the US belongs. This article does not and cannot answer all the questions about copyright that readers of this international professional journal may have. Instead, I focus on a select number of questions and scenarios of importance to school librarians who work with students aged 5-18 in order to give examples that will help to direct readers to the sources needed for a specific issue or question. To assist readers, I also provide an overview of a number of international copyright organizations, which may influence how copyright is addressed in specific countries. The Questions Because copyright law can be such a quagmire, it is necessary to use several possible concerns of school librarians as examples from which to work. The selected questions are as follows, (a) Can students legally borrow music from the Internet to add to a class project if the selected Web site comes from a country other than their own? (b) Is it acceptable for a teacher to make class copies of an article that he or she read in a foreign journal for use in his or her classroom? (c) Are Internet entities such as blogs, wikis, and social interaction sites copyrighted? If so, how does this affect those of us (and our students) who use them? These three questions are addressed following a discussion of several of the more prominent international copyright treaties and organizations to which the US and a number of other countries belong. Selected International Copyright Treaties and Organizations There is no such thing as an 'international copyright' that will automatically protect an author's writings throughout the world (International Copyright Relations of the United States, 2007, p. 1). Instead, the national laws of various countries offer the owners or creators of works their particular versions of copyright law. With all the diverse nations in the world, this means that myriad copyright legislations apply depending on where something was created, where it was published, and so forth. Thus it can be confusing when it comes to determining who owns what, for how long, and where, if the work is used outside the country of origin. Because there is no single set of rules or laws for copyright internationally, it is arguable that a work considered in the public domain in one country might be considered copyrighted in another. …

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