Is it copyright infringement? You have been asked to guest-lecture in a PR class. In your research, you come across a great lesson plan in a library book. It includes a sample worksheet page, and you photocopy it to hand out to the students.Â
Answer: It is probably not a copyright infringement. You should be able to use the first set of photocopies for educational purposes without fear of reprisal, under the fair use clause for copyrighted material for educational purposes, especially if the resource was published very recently. However, if you begin to teach this class regularly, you cannot keep using photocopied pages year after year, since it deprives the copyright holder from benefiting from the regular use of his or her intellectual property. You should always check the copyright information at the front of the book to see if there are any specific permissions required.
How do you avoid copyright infringement?
If the pages are not protected by copyright, use them. If they are, and you want to use them more than once, even for educational purposes, buy the workbooks for your students (or have them buy them). Publishers also can grant access to portions of copyrighted materials for a smaller fee than making the students purchase the entire book.