Fair Use

Fair use is a copyright law that has to do with limited use of something that is copyrighted. Under fair use you may use clips and pieces of either a play, movie, book, article, music, dance, and even pictures without obtaining permission directly from the person or company it is copyrighted under. My understanding of fair use seems that it is more for the public than for large companies, corporate America and so on... I really never thought much about fair use because in school you are taught to cite all your sources or the government could come after you. It really makes you think how often fair use is abused or not understood.
In the education world, fair use is all too popular. Teachers use plenty of clips, images, movies, etc. in order to convey a message or use as a teaching skill. Fair use applies to education because students can also interpret the ideas they are being taught probably better if they are exposed to something more familiar than not. They may be able to remember a war better because they saw a movie on it. If teachers use the materials and other tools they are given they can most likely capture the attention of their students better. I think that knowing the rules and regulations/laws of fair use is important though. I was always under the impression that as long as you cite something you could use it. I'm sure once I become a teacher there are times where I'll forget or something but I didn't know the severity of the matter about people being sued in a school setting because they never got permission to use a certain copyright or that they took too much of a clip or that they changed something around. I think it is important to know the rules because in education you are going to have students that want to use other people's work but they should be taught to do it the right way and respectfully. If they do not learn when in school than they may never learn until it is too late and they are behind bars or paying a large fine. I hope to imcorporate the severity of fair use in my classroom.