Reading news stories from the web on school-wide news program

[LibraryGuySC]

Is it copyright violation to read news stories gathered from the internet (Scholastic News for Kids, Dogonews, etc.) on a morning video news show? The students are giving credit (website, author, address). The news stories are short blurbs, and as I said, are briefly credited. The show is a live video broadcast shown every morning. I have concerns that this is copyright violation. Any advice?

[Smokin]

http://home.earthlink.net/~cnew/research.htm

[Kaitlin]

You might also check out:
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6647709.html
and other posts at that site.  Or put in your own query there. 

Better yet, you could avoid the whole copyright issue if your students would just summarize the information found in their own words, instead of reading the texts verbatim.  Facts and ideas are not copyrighted, only how those facts and ideas are expressed.  Students should still credit their sources, of course, as a matter of academic integrity.
Note also that, within such summaries, it should be OK a a matter of fair use to occasionally quote a sentence or two verbatim, if important to use the particular phrasing, with spoken "quotes" around the passage.   

As for your actual question

Is it copyright violation to read news stories gathered from the internet (Scholastic News for Kids, Dogonews, etc.) on a morning video news show? The students are giving credit (website, author, address). The news stories are short blurbs, and as I said, are briefly credited. The show is a live video broadcast shown every morning. I have concerns that this is copyright violation. Any advice?

Your concerns are legitimate.  Reading a copyrighted text aloud over the air is a performance, and absent "fair use" would be an infringement.  Giving credit to source does not prevent a use from being infringing. 

"Fair use" has a much broader latitude when it comes to educational uses, but it is still a difficult call to make.  Within the area of educational uses, however, copying of materials which were originally designed for educational use tends to be less susceptible of fair-use protection than copying of works not meant for educational use.  I'm no copyright expert, but it seems to me that if these were hard-copy texts designed for educational purposes, reading them could very well be seen as a way to circumvent the publishers' copyrights in the text versions--since the school wouldn't have to buy batches of copies.  The fact that these are web-based stories, however, could change that dynamic.

[Kaitlin]

Of course, you could also just ask permission of the publishers.  It's not impossible that they'd be happy to grant it free, since it helps promote their websites -- and their books, etc. through their trademark -- to the kids.

[Smokin]

This does not sound at all like copyright infringement the way Im imagining it. It seems like kids are pretending to be reporters, finding info on the net and "reporting it".

The copyright law allows some serious latitude for use of material without permission from copyright owners for the purpose of educational use.

Section 107 ("fair use")
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a
copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords
or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism,
comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use),
scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.

§ 110 · Limitations on exclusive rights:
Exemption of certain performances and displays43
Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, the following are not infringements
of copyright:
(1) performance or display of a work by instructors or pupils in the course
of face-to-face teaching activities of a nonprofit educational institution, in
a classroom or similar place devoted to instruction, unless, in the case of a
motion picture or other audiovisual work, the performance, or the display
of individual images, is given by means of a copy that was not lawfully made
under this title, and that the person responsible for the performance knew or
had reason to believe was not lawfully made;
(2) except with respect to a work produced or marketed primarily for performance
or display as part of mediated instructional activities transmitted via digital networks, or a performance or display that is given by means of a copy
or phonorecord that is not lawfully made and acquired under this title, and the
transmitting government body or accredited nonprofit educational institution
knew or had reason to believe was not lawfully made and acquired, the performance
of a nondramatic literary or musical work or reasonable and limited
portions of any other work, or display of a work in an amount comparable to
that which is typically displayed in the course of a live classroom session, by or
in the course of a transmission, if—
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.pdf

Some limitations of the copyright law are quite specific and clear. For example, playing a legally obtained movie is fair use.

[Kaitlin]

It seems like kids are pretending to be reporters, finding info on the net and "reporting it".

My understanding is that the kids are being reporters, not pretending.  Also, they are reading copyrighted material, which constitutes a performance (derivative work) of the text, and that performance is being transmitted throughout the school. 
I would love to think they could do this without any worries of infringement, but I do not see the listed exemptions of the quoted sections of the copyright act as clearly covering this activity. 

The exempted activities under the act must be "face-to-face".  The students' reading of the news might well be construed as not face-to-face if it goes out via video to the entire school. 

According to copyright expert Nimmer, the House report on sec. 110 (House Report No. 94-1476 at p. 82) states that "the exemption would not be applicable to 'performances in an auditorium or stadium during a school assembly, graduation ceremony, class play, or sporting event, where the audience is not confined to the members of a particular class.' -- at least for clause (1) -- and therefore Nimmer concludes that "This is, then, an exemption for classroom, not school, performances."   2-8 Nimmer on Copyright § 8.15 (2009). 

[Smokin]

The exempted activities under the act must be "face-to-face".  The students' reading of the news might well be construed as not face-to-face if it goes out via video to the entire school.

Nah, it also includes transmitted/broadcast work,it was just so long that I included the link to 110 instead. If the transmitted work is private, not available to the public or open to the public, then it would be allowed. This is designed to allow for new online schools/lesson/work to be held.

"the exemption would not be applicable to 'performances in an auditorium or stadium during a school assembly, graduation ceremony, class play, or sporting event, where the audience is not confined to the members of a particular class.' -- at least for clause (1)

110 is pretty long and they include some exception for things like playing music at a burger joint, or at religious events or events associated with school provided that they don't profit from their activities, or get anyone who objects from them using their material.

[Kaitlin]

As I read 110, those long exceptions only apply to "mediated instructional activities", which as indicated by the House Report mentioned above, seems to be a term of art (in education-ese?) referring to things like online classes for remote viewing by one particular class of students.  In other words, it's not just any educational transmission, but one directed to students of a particular course.  See, e.g., http://www.bsu.edu/library/collections/copyright/complying/

As for the act itself,
stripped down and paraphrased, section 110 subsections (1) and (2) state:

The following acts are not infringing:
(1) certain face-to-face uses of materials in a classroom
(2) performance of a non-dramatic work, or excerpts of a dramatic work if of the sort you might use in a class-room, which you use in the course of a transmission IF
(A) it's supervised by a teacher as part of "MEDIATED INSTRUCTIONAL ACTIVITIES" [see above] and
(B) the performance is directly related to what's being taught and
(C) the transmission is solely for, and as far as technologically possible, only available to
(i) students enrolled in that class for which the transmission is made; or
(ii) governmental officers or employees as part of their official duties;
and
(D) the institution sending the transmission
(i) institutes copyright policies and gives info on same to teachers and students that explain and promote compliance with copyright law and gives notice to the students that materials in the course may be copyrighted; and
(ii) if the transmission is digital, the institution also
(I) takes technological measures to reasonably prevent the retention of the work beyond the time necessary for the actual class transmission and to prevent the unauthorized dissemination of the work
and
(II) does not do anything which could reasonably be expected to break the copyright holder's digital protective measures[....]


While it's not beyond possibility that the act could eventually be construed to cover the sort of activity described in the OP (and I think it ought to be), it does not appear to be clearly there at present -- especially in view of the House Report and Nimmer's commentary on it, both of which are sources a court might look to in construing the statute.