Usage of Photos of Well-known Photographers in Presentation slides to students

[PhotoLecturer]

I have a dilema here... Here's the situation.
I'm a photography lecturer and going to start my 1st week of lesson with inspiring my students by talking about the best photographers in different genres of photography. Is it ok to include copyrighted photos in my powerpoint slides when i talk about the photographer (with credit line)? Is that considered fair use for educational purposes?

Problem is, I can't really just get creative common photos or free photos to illustrate my point here as i want to show the photographer's work and talk about how great he/she is.

I personally take copyright very seriously and would remind my students never to copy / publish copyrighted photos without permission or purchase of license to photo usage in their blog / facebook etc. So i would like to set a good example when i do my lectures.

- I will be presenting this presentation slides to a class of 20 students
- This presentation will only be presented in the classroom, one-time.
- This presentation will not be passed on or be copied by staff or student, it will not exist outside of the classroom.

Alternatively, would it be better if i show the students those inspiring top-notch photos straight from the photographer's websites? (it's just a little bit of a hassle that i have to load every websites and photos that i want to show on the web browser and then switch back to my slides to talk about other stuff. But if that's the safest and most ethical way, I'll rather go for this.

Hope someone can provide some advices / solutions here. Thank you

 

[MLeeK]

Keith will chime in eventually with the specifics on the copyright law, but yes. You can use images in education that are copyrighted.

 

[MLeeK]

Here's an article on fair use for you Purdue OWL: Strategies for Fair Use

 

[Designer]

I say go for it. Copy them for your lecture with the credit line and don't sell the lecture slides. All the lectures I've attended use someone else's photos. Either copies of photos or photos or other art.

 

[gsgary]

Just interested who you class as best photographers in different genres of photography ?

 

[imagemaker46]

I don't see any problem with using any, they are not being used for commercial purposes or being copied and sold.

 

[unpopular]

See Section C3 of the Stanford guidelines, based on the CONFU Report (http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/dcom/olia/confu/confurep.pdf):

Stanford Copyright & Fair Use - Proposed (But Not Adopted) Educational Guidelines on Fair Use

While not adopted, this is more than a conservative approach.

The proposed CONFU guideline follows:

4.2.4 Illustrations and Photographs
The reproduction or incorporation of photographs and illustrations is more difficult to definewith regard to fair use because fair use usually precludes the use of an entire work. Under theseguidelines a photograph or illustration may be used in its entirety but no more than 5 images byan artist or photographer may be reproduced or otherwise incorporated as part of an educationalmultimedia project created under Section 2. When using photographs and illustrations from apublished collective work, not more than 10% or 15 images, whichever is less, may bereproduced or otherwise incorporated as part of an educational multimedia project createdunder Section 2.

Lehman, Bruce A. United States of America. US Patent and Trademark Office. Conference on Fair Use: Final Report to the Commissioner of the Conclusion of the Conference on Fair Use. Washington DC: , 1998. Print. <http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/dcom/olia/confu/confurep.pdf>.

 

[The_Traveler]

Fair Use

 

[Overread]

If you're lecturing at a university/college they should have someone in the department (or main offices depending on the size of the university) who should be well versed in the legalities of copyright with regard to teaching. I would ask around and find this person and ask them directly what the institutions policies are and what you can and can't do - for teaching you have some relaxations of the copyright rules which allow you to do to more.

It's not just displays like this, but things such as copying texts from journals/books as well as other info. It might be a bit dull, but the institution should have all the info you specifically need on hand.

 

[amolitor]

Some work by some photographers may be more widely available than you think.

There's quite of a bit of Walker Evans available that is not copyrighted because he was working for the US government at the time, for instance. There may be other similar cases?

 

[unpopular]

Yes. Even Adams did a lot for the the Parks department, and Department of the Interior. I'm pretty sure most of the f/64 group did.