Abstract

Writing teachers have always had to contend with plagiarism. However, the technology of the Internet and the thorny issues of copyright law complicate how we teach legal and ethical use of others’ materials in the networked classroom. Our pedagogy and curriculum choices and our students’ writing practices are shaped by a legal infrastructure that includes the fair use doctrine. Our understanding and knowledge of the fair use doctrine should become second nature to us. Critical awareness of fair use, the four-factor test, and how to conduct appropriate analyses when using others’ materials must become part of the everyday digital writing/new media classroom curriculum. To this end, the author summarizes the salient points of law and practice of fair use and demonstrates, in small ways, how the fair use doctrine can inform the teaching of writing in digital contexts. As teachers, researchers, and experts of writing, the discourse of fair use must be considered in addition to the discourse of plagiarism.

Citation

Rife, M.C. The fair use doctrine: History, application, and implications for (new media) writing teachers. Computers and Composition, 24(2), 154-178. Elsevier Ltd. Retrieved August 7, 2024 from https://www.learntechlib.org/p/204904/.

Keywords

• Alphabetic text
• Copyright
• digital writing
• Fair Use
• Grokster
• History
• infrastructure
• Intellectual Property
• Moral rights
• Napster
• new media
• pedagogy
• Plagiarism
• Public domain
• Sony
• technology
• The four-factor test