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Thanks, Don.

I was dean of academic affairs at a college. This is the most abused justification for copyright infringement that I dealt with.

Yes, agreed, Matt.

The question arose today from a elementary music teacher who is concerned about causing an infringement suit against her school by using copyrighted songs in music program featuring her 6th grade kids.

The consensus was: "do it!"

I would hope that "educational use" will shield her as well as her school.

I have to chuckle a bit when I hear people say they can use copyrighted material in their song because it's only a few seconds of use and it's covered under the "fair use" clause. Ummmmm, no, it's not.

Back around 1970.....My English teacher printed and handed out the lyrics to a Beatles song and then we listened and analyzed the song and it's lyrics as part of the class educational curriculum on poetry and other such things. That's what the "fair use" clause is all about.

Allowing music in schools and educational settings is common sense and exempting them from the copyright requirements for limited fair use is proper and fair to the writers.

Don, she is right to be concerned. If she plans to perform the song with the kids, she should look for published music and buy it, and buy enough copies (ok to store those and use photocopies with kids). Silver Burdett was a company I know teachers used for this; they published many appropriate songs and provided music-minus-one backing tracks.

What exactly does your friend want to do?

Really interesting article, Don. Hoping the best for your friend too - people in the industry aren't known to be particularly forgiving, but fingers crossed!

Deryk,

My understanding is; it's the copyright holder's responsibility to aggressively protect their copyrights or risk losing them. I imagine Dylan to have a literal army of attorneys working full-time to protect his rights. The high cost of fame.