Criminals in the classroom

Teachers, scholars, school administrators, and even students have been understandably and justifiably upset by the recent cases of plagiarism by high officials of the land.

Following the admonition in the gospels of Matthew (7:3) and Luke (6:41) to look first at the beam or log in our own eye before noticing the speck in our brother’s eye, however, allow me to point to a crime being committed every single day in practically all of our colleges and universities.

I refer to the widespread practice of photocopying copyrighted material.

Of course, copyright infringement is different from plagiarism. Plagiarism, which is stealing someone else’s idea, is a sin. Plagiarism is, in fact, considered by all educational institutions to be a mortal sin, or more precisely, an offense so heinous that offenders are flunked (if they are students) or fired (if they are teachers).

Copyright infringement, however, which is using or copying someone else’s exact words without first asking permission, is a crime, according to RA 8293 or the “Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines.” Since it copies exact words, photocopying journal articles or books is copyright infringement.

Some misguided teachers and schools have invoked Sec. 185 of Chapter 8 of Part 4 of the law. This part is entitled “The Law on Copyright.”

The section, entitled “Fair Use of a Copyrighted Work,” reads this way: “The fair use of a copyrighted work for criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching including multiple copies for classroom use, scholarship, research, and similar purposes is not an infringement of copyright. … In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is fair use, the factors to be considered shall include: (a) The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for non-profit education purposes; (b) The nature of the copyrighted work; (c) The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (d) The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.”

The second sentence clarifies and limits what the first sentence says.

Let us take a simple hypothetical example. Let us say that I am a 7-foot professional basketball player who is not known to be bright and I write a sonnet. Let us say that a reporter, without telling or asking me, now writes, as a news item, that I have written a sonnet and he quotes the entire sonnet. (It would be news, because people think that I am incapable of serious thought.) The reporter, of course, mentions my name and does not claim the sonnet to be his own creation, so this is not a case of plagiarism.

This is, however, a case of copyright infringement. I would be unable to sell my sonnet to a magazine, which would have paid me a handsome fee for it, not as handsome as the fee I receive as a professional basketball player, but money anyway.

Is the reporter’s reprinting of my sonnet fair use? No, because it falls under letter D. I lose money because the reporter beats me to the first publication of my beautiful sonnet.

Similarly, multiple copies for classroom use may not necessarily be fair use. It depends on whether the author or publisher loses money because of the photocopying.

If what is photocopied is an article in a journal, for example, the author and the publisher clearly lose money, because unless the journal is open access, the article would have earned anywhere from $10 to $30 per copy according to current pay-per-view rates. If there are 40 students in a class, the author and publisher lose at least 40 times $10 or $400. Making multiple copies of a journal article, therefore, may mean a substantial loss of income for the author and the publisher.

The teacher who made the photocopies is, therefore, guilty of the crime of copyright infringement and, simply put, a criminal.

Having students go to a copying machine to make the photocopies does not absolve the teacher of the crime. The teacher is still the mastermind of the crime, even if he or she is not the one actually getting the prohibited act done.

So you know where I am coming from, I chair the Filipinas Copyright Licensing Society (FILCOLS), which licenses schools and other groups to photocopy copyrighted material.

FILCOLS is a not for profit, non-government organization mandated by authors, publishers, and other rightsholders to enforce their economic rights and moral rights as defined in RA 8293, Sec. 183. FILCOLS is the recognized national reproduction rights organization (RRO) of the Philippines, operating under a Voluntary Collective Licensing Model. FILCOLS is a member of the International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organizations (IFRRO).

Our work is simple: someone who photocopies or digitally reproduces copyrighted material pays us a fee; we then send the fee (minus our administrative expenses) to whoever owns the copyright, whether here or abroad. Foreign RROS do the same thing; when schools or copying machine owners reproduce Philippine material, they collect the fees and send the fees to FILCOLS. FILCOLS then distributes the fees to copyright owners living in the Philippines.

Teachers, there is no reason to remain criminals. Just have your school register with FILCOLS and your photocopying becomes legal.