Copyright and Fair use

I decided to take the quiz first and then see the answers to test my knowledge on copyright and fair use. I assumed that I knew pretty well what was "ok" and what was not "ok." After taking the quiz I realized that I did not have as much knowledge as I thought. The quiz was compiled of statements that you answer true or false to. When you go to the answer sheet, it says whether or not the statement was true or false, and then explains why this was true or false. I got many questions incorrect, so this quiz was full of suprises for me!

1. The eighth statement stated: "A student film buff downloads a new release from a Taiwanese Web site to use for a humanities project. As long as the student gives credit to the sites from which he's downloaded material, this is covered under fair use." This suprised me because I assumed that it was ok to use this downloaded release as long as there was a citation showing that this video did not belong to this student.

2. The eleventh statement stated: "A teacher videotapes a rerun of Frontier House, the PBS reality show that profiles three modern families living as homesteaders from the 1880s did. In class, students edit themselves "into" the frontier and make fun of the spoiled family from California. This is fair use." I thought for sure that this was not legal because the students are changing the orignial videotapes into something that was insulting to the original video. Along with that they were using a majority of the videotapes with just their own alterations here and there.

3. The fourteenth statement stated: "On Back-to-School night, an elementary school offers child care for students' younger siblings. They put the kids in the library and show them Disney VHS tapes bought by the PTA. This is permissible." The only reason this really caught my eye was because it happens so often that I thought for sure it was ok, and it isn't! Which brings my attention to how people are not aware of what is legal and illegal when dealing with copyright and fair use.

4. The fifteenth statement stated: "A teacher makes a compilation of movie clips from various VHS tapes to use in his classroom as lesson starters. This is covered under fair use." I considered this legal because the teacher was using vhs tapes that were his, if they were clips from online I could see how that would be illegal, but until the answer gave an explanation why this was not allowed, I did not understand.

5. The sixteenth statement stated: "At a local electronics show, a teacher buys a machine that defeats the copy protection on DVDs, CD-ROMs, and just about everything else. She lets her students use it so they can incorporate clips from rented DVDs into their film genre projects. This is fair use." This just sounded silly to me because I did not even know that this machine existed, but that is pretty interesting and useful!

6. The seventeenth statement stated: "A number of students take digital pictures of local streets and businesses for their Web projects. These are permissible to post online." I did not think it was ok because of the businesses, but otherwise I can see why this is all legal.