In this article, the author, Executive Director for the Instructional Telecommunications Council, discusses the problem of faculty use of copyright material in educational multimedia presentations. The solution he offers is a set of guidelines developed by a working group of representatives from college and university media centers.

The guidelines allow for the following:

• an instructor may use copyrighted material for instructional purposes for up to two years before he or she must ask for permission to use it (this may be thought of as a kind trial period or free-use period); there are some limitations on the amount of copyright material one can use in a given presentation
• those wishing to commercially reproduce multi-media objects must first obtain permission
• whether a commercial or educational interest, those wishing to use copyright material should seek permission to do so as early as possible for practical purposes
• when the instructional presentation is unfinished and contained in a limited access system, copyright permission is not required (i.e., so long as the instructional presentation is still in development and set within a closed system, copyright permission need not be obtained)

For the full text, see http://www.libraries.psu.edu/mtss/

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