Transformativeness+Standard

=**"Transformativeness Standard"**=

You all know what it means to transform. Heck, you first started talking about it when you watched caterpillars turn into butterflies as kids. One principle that you must follow when deciding whether or not your work meets the fair use guidelines involves the very same principle. You //can// use copyrighted materials when creating work both for school and outside of school but it //must// transform the original work to fit your intended needs. But wait! Before you grab your dad's __Yellow Submarine__ (Beatles) and decide to add it into your podcast, it must also meet one more requirement:


 * Did you use only the amount necessary in order to fulfill your need?

Was the material taken appropriate in kind, considering the nature of the copyrighted work and of the use?** This means, even though you used someone's work for part of your project, did you do as much or more of your own work to complete the project? Does your work constitute the essence of your project, or does it rely on the copyrighted work too much? You don't want to use the heart of someone else's work as the heart of yours.

So, you can't just use __Yellow Submarine__ for background music on your podcast about what's been going on in your classroom (you didn't transform it....remember the caterpillar?), however you could use it as a focus of a critique (you'd then be creating your very own butterfly :). Corny, huh? Well this stuff gets confusing. Here are some other examples that fit the "tranformativeness standard" and those that do not:

__Fair Use:__
 * Creating a found poem using lines from newspapers, magazines, and books
 * The video posted on the homepage
 * A parody or work written or performed for satirical purposes (Saturday Night Live comes to mind).

__Not Fair Use:__


 * Copying an entire science textbook from another district because you like the one your son is using more than the one your district has provided for your use.
 * Using someone's drawings as the pictures for your comic strip--you just write a caption but leave the drawing as you found it.

There's even a non-profit Organization for Transformative Works (OTW). You can check out their website [|here].

You may find this chart helpful to do a simple cross-reference of what it is you would like to use, ways to use the material appropriately, as well as the uses of it that would not work in collaboration with the Fair Use Doctrine.

Take a look at the following video. It discusses how education is currently being held back by the false beliefs about fair use and how we, both teachers and students alike, can begin to make the law work to our advantage.

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