Expert: Shannon Moore - 8/26/2010

Question
I am a Yearbook Advisor in a school district.  This year we are wanting to use Board games as our theme.  We would like to just take a picture of the boards, and then upload them for backgrounds for our pages.  I did not know if there were any copywrights that would keep us from doing that, or how to find out.  Could you please help me with this?

Thank you,

Lisa

Answer
Dear Lisa,

Since this is for a school, I'd suggest looking at fair use issues:

"Under the fair use doctrine of the U.S. copyright statute, it is permissible to use limited portions of a work including quotes, for purposes such as commentary, criticism, news reporting, and scholarly reports. There are no legal rules permitting the use of a specific number of words, a certain number of musical notes, or percentage of a work. Whether a particular use qualifies as fair use depends on all the circumstances."

Here are some links that should assist you further:

http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html Fair Use Flyer
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ21.pdf Reproductions of Copyrighted Works by Educators and Librarians

Hope that helps! I wish you much success & happiness in all your ventures!

Warmest regards,
Shannon Moore
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