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September 25, 2025
Renee Hobbs - Copyright Clarity
A Fair Use Scholar Talks About Copyright in
Education and Digital Learning
Visual Literacy


  1. Sign in, stowe your other devices, log into a Chromebook, and go to WYAW (While You Are Waiting).

  2. Visual Literacy:
    https://bit.ly/4gym5Bs

    "...includes interpreting still and moving images, graphs, tables, maps and other graphic representations, and understanding and evaluating how images and language work together in distinctive ways in different curriculum areas to present ideas and information."

    "Visual knowledge is understanding how visual elements such as line, colour, shape, texture, space, symbols, pattern and composition create meaning."
    Source: https://creatingmultimodaltexts.com/visual-literacy/

    Visual literacy is an element of multimodal communication where we interpret or use different media to represent information and ideas and repond to these media in a variety of modes of learning or interpretation. When we see/read images or read text, we are using a visual mode.

    Multimodal modes and media are a way to communicate meaning using more than one mode, or method of communication.

    The five modes of communication are linguistic, visual, aural, spatial, and gestural:
    • Linguistic: Written and spoken words
    • Visual: Images, whether still or moving
    • Aural: Sound, music, volume, rhythm, pitch, tone, and voice
    • Spatial: Position, physical arrangement, and proximity
    • Gestural: Movement, expression, and body language

    Media The "substance" through which communication is conveyed. For example, photography, painting, and film are all visual media.

    Multimodal projects are those that use multiple modes to communicate a message. For example, a multimodal project might combine text, images, motion, or audio. One example of this is a DIGITAL STORY.
    Source: AI on Google

    A visually literate individual is able to:

    • Determine the nature and extent of the visual materials needed
    • Find and access needed images and visual media effectively and efficiently
    • Interpret and analyze the meanings of images and visual media
    • Evaluate images and their sources
    • Use images and visual media effectively
    • Design and create meaningful images and visual media
    • Understand many of the ethical, legal, social, and economic issues surrounding the creation and use of images and visual media, and access and use visual materials ethically

    Source: https://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/visualliteracy

  3. WE DO: "Read" or interpret the symbol: https://quizlet.com/944591023/flashcards

  4. GROUP WORK: Visual literacy: Let's do one together: A Photo Tells a Story
    1. First, choose a photo in the shared folder for your group:
      https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1c1GoJmUuDbnstQsf4LU_vRkqWbhI4TWU?usp=drive_link

    2. Look at the image.
      1. What do you see and notice?
      2. What ideas, feelings, or themes does it convey?
      3. What story might the picture tell? (There is likely also a REAL story attached to this image but for the first part of this activity, how would you use it to tell YOUR story?)
      4. NOW: GEt the real story.....download the image from Drive and use Google Lens on the Google search page to find out the "true story".

  5. Copyright and fair use. Seems boring? It's really fascinating!

    1. Renee Hobbs and Fair Use: Practical tool for students and teachers...
      Document the Fair Use Reasoning Process (Source: Media Lab)

    2. Let's explore more......https://mediaeducationlab.com/copyright
      copyright law

      determining fair use

    3. What is fair use and what media is included? https://musc.libguides.com/copyright/fairuse#loaded

    4. Why is this important for NC Teachers and Students?
    5. COPYRIGHT: Movies in the Classroom
      6. copyright
      Source: https://guides.uflib.ufl.edu/copyright/video

      The Copyright Act at §110(1) (face to face teaching exemption) allows for the performance or display of video or film in a classroom where instruction takes place in [the] classroom with enrolled students physically present and the film is related to the curricular goals of the course.
      (Apr 8, 2021)

       

    6. What about using video in online classes or environments? If it's OK for online is it also OK for face-to-face?
      https://uri.libguides.com/fairuse/examples/video

      What about streaming movies from Disney Plus or Netflix?
      https://guides.uflib.ufl.edu/copyright/video (Scroll down the page)

      And finally, what about outside of a classroom for educational purposes?
      Disney Fines School for Showing Lion King at PTA Fundraiser
      Original Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/02/04/disney-lion-king-school-fine/

  6. Creative Commons https://creativecommons.org/
    cc
    Want more information? https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/

    1. Looking for media that has CC licences and that can or most likely can be used in accordance with Fair Use?
      Look for wikimedia commons and/or CC licensed material or .gov files since, in general, government files are in the public domain (https://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/selected-internet/imagesources.html) including NASA (see here for more resources from NASA for educators https://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/index.html). However, some media and the logos are copyrighted but fall under fair use if you are using it for educational purposes.

    2. Some good copyright friendly websites for VISUALS (images and video):
  7. AI and Copyright.....because common use of generative AI is such a relatively new practice, copyright and fair use is a bit of a grey area. Here are a few tidbits:

      • Works created solely by artificial intelligence (AI) are not protected by copyright in the United States. This is because copyright law protects human creativity, and AI-generated works are not considered to be the product of human authorship.

      • Many rights holders, including authors, artists, media companies, and music companies, have sued AI companies for using their work to train AI models.

      • AI companies often defend themselves using the "fair use" doctrine, which allows the use of copyrighted material without permission in certain situations. A KEY factor is money! (NL)

    1. Very recently, a case of Fair Use was decided in the courts NOT in favor of AI use of copyrighted material to train LLM (large language models - the "engines" that run AI results). Interested? Check it out: https://www.wired.com/story/thomson-reuters-ai-copyright-lawsuit/

    2. A REALLY good resource on the issues related to AI and Copyright from USF Libraries: https://guides.lib.usf.edu/c.php?g=1315087&p=9690822

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