Visual Resources Association's Statement on the Fair Use of Images for Teaching, Research, and Study

Most of us who use images in education and scholarship find ourselves wondering at some point about whether we are within our legal rights to use an image. Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act allows for “fair use” exceptions to the exclusive rights of copyright owners to reproduce their work. While most educators know that teaching, scholarship, and research are generally thought to fall under the fair use umbrella, many of us find ourselves with more questions than answers. Under what circumstances can I post this image online? Can I share that image with colleagues from a different institution?

To help the academic community navigate the murky waters of copyright and fair use, the Visual Resources Association (VRA) released its Statement on the Fair Use of Images for Teaching, Research, and Study (PDF) last December. It has since been lauded and endorsed by many professional individuals and organizations, including the College Art Association and the Association of Research Libraries.


This document offers important guidance for individuals and institutions who seek a balance between risk management and the pursuit of educational and scholarly goals. It begins with an excellent introduction to fair use in relation to using in education and research. Then it describes six uses of copyrighted still images that the VRA and its impressive Legal Advisory Committee believe fall within fair use, along with suggestions for practices to bolster a fair use argument. These six uses are: 1) preservation; 2) use of images in teaching; 3) use of images on course websites and in other online study materials; 4) adaptations of images for teaching and classroom work by students; 5) sharing images among educational and cultural institutions to facilitate teaching and study; and 6) reproduction of images in theses and dissertations.

Image: Wordle created using the text from the VRA Statement on the Fair Use of Images for Teaching, Research, and Study.

Copyright, Fair Use, and Online Images

A recent conversation with someone in the Art and Art History department reminded me that confusion over the online use of copyrighted images persists, even among some faculty members. This really comes as no surprise. Copyright is complex, the parameters of fair use are murky, and the fair use of digital images require us to consider elements that didn't exist when the Copyright Act of 1976 was passed. It's a mystifying topic for most of us. Over at the Social Media Examiner, Sara Hawkins has written a very helpful piece, Copyright Fair Use and How it Works for Online Images. As an attorney, Hawkins is well versed on this subject, and here she provides an excellent overview of the issues that we should consider before using others' images online.

While brief, the article does a great job of introducing this complicated subject. After discussing key points about copyright and fair use, Hawkins outlines "5 Things to Think About Before Using Copyrighted Images":

1. Do you understand the term fair use?
2. Why are you using the image? 
3. Have you transformed the image?
4. How much of the image are you using?
5. Are you willing to risk your site being taken down, getting a cease and desist/bill/DMCA or being sued?

In summary Hawkins notes,"When it comes to photos, when in doubt, assume it’s subject to copyright and don’t use it without the appropriate permission." Check out the article -- it's rare to find such a straightforward and clear introduction to this topic.

Image: Jason Pettus (jasonpettus), mytatt.jpg, 2007, available from Flickr under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.

Contemporary Art in the VRC Image Collection

The VRC digital image collection focuses on materials that relate to the curriculum of the Department of Art and Art History. In addition to images of works by our faculty, graduate students, and artists from the Visiting Artist Program, the VRC acquires other images related to our faculty's teaching and research interests -- specifically those that are difficult to obtain in other places. Recent additions to the collection include hundreds of images of contemporary art, with a special focus on sculpture and installations. The artists represented are too numerous to list, but sources for images include vendors and fair-use scans from books. Some examples of recent sources are:

• Judith Collins, Sculpture Today (2007)
  
• Hugh Davies, Blurring the Boundaries : Installation Art, 1969-1996 (1996)
  
• Nicolas De Oliveira, Installation Art in the New Millennium (1999)
  
• Jiehong Jiang and Saatchi Gallery, The Revolution Continues: New Art in China (2006)
  
• La Biennale de Venezia, Think with the Senses, Feel with the Mind: Art in the Present Tense (2007)
  
• Whitney Museum of American Art, Biennial Exhibition (1997)
• Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center, Thing: New Sculpture from Los Angeles (2005)
  

Stop by the VRC if you have questions about how to search for these kinds of materials effectively in our collection. We also welcome suggestions for our image collection from our faculty and students.

Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video

Not sure what copyrighted materials you can safely use in videos you create and post on YouTube? Take a look at the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video
from the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property and the Center for Social Media at American University.

Released last year, this document provides best practices in the context of common situations such as commentary or critique; illustration or example; incidental capture of copyrighted materials; reproducing, reposting, or quoting in order to preserve, memorialize, or rescue an experience or event; reposting in order to launch a discussion; and recombining elements to make a new work. It also provides a list of common fair use myths.

To further help online video creators keep within the boundaries of fair use, there is now a short video introducing these principles, Remix Culture: Fair Use Is Your Friend. It uses the language of online video to introduce the concept of fair use within the online video medium, and may be an easier-to-swallow introduction for many people, especially students.

Image: from Remix Culture: Fair Use Is Your Friend.

Via Boing Boing.