USA:

The USA has the least restrictive copyright laws for educators. The use of copyright material for educational purposes is considered to be fair use. This essentially allows educators to reproduce photographs and images for lectures, and also photocopy images and text for handouts, within reason. ===== Within reason?? Of course you could not photocopy an entire book for your students, this would be unfair to the creator of the material! The idea is that only an excerpt would be copied, either for examination purposes or perhaps as part of an assignment or lesson. External link: United States Copyright Office=====

Australia: As in the UK, Australian copyright law includes exceptions for non-commercial research and private study in fair dealing. Australia does also have exceptions to copyright law that are specific to educational institutions. For example, an instructor can record radio or TV broadcasts to play in class, or copy a reasonable portion of text or digital material for presentation in class. As in the UK, universities, colleges, and schools also pay copyright fees, to either the Copyright Agency Limited or Screenrights (the Australian equivalents of the UK CLA). External Link: Australian Copyright Council =====In Australia, educational exceptions are granted specifically to educational institutions, and for non-commercial use only.=====

Canada: Copyright in Canada is currently in a state of flux with the creation of Bill C-32. Bill C-32 Access Copyright is the Canadian version of the UK CLA and provides licenses for schools and universities the Canadian version of the UK CLA) External Link: Copyright Act of Canada =====Open Educational Resources (OER) are digital materials that can be re-used for teaching, learning research and more, made available for free===== through open licenses, which allow uses of materials that would be easily permitted under copyright alone (Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia - accessed August 1, 2011). OER resources are being used in distance education and include a variety learning content and tools. Open Educational Resources - Wikipedia Creative Commons Creative Commons is a non-profit, worldwide network that provides an alternative to the all rights reserved version of copyright. Creative Commons "develops, supports, and stewards legal and technical infrastructure that maximizes digital creativity, sharing innovations" (Creative Commons Web Home Page, accessed August 1, 2011).

European Union, including UK: UK: European Union: In the realm of research and education, fair dealing is limited to Member States benefit from fair use for the purpose of reproduction of material for non-commercial research (ie: granteducation and teaching (Foundation for Information Policy supported research at a University) or for private study only. Research (2002), clause (14) of Directive 2001/29/EC): Therefore, students can photocopy material to study, but an http://www.fipr.org/copyright/eucd.html Fair dealing also instructor would be infringing on the rights of the creator if they applies to copying of published literary, dramatic, musical copied material to present or distribute in class without and artistic works done for instruction. The copies must be permission. This includes class handouts and presentation of accompanied by sufficient acknowledgment if possible and images such as photographs in a lecture presentation. Instead, the copying process must be done by the person giving or universities, colleges, and schools in the UK must obtain receiving instruction (Tovey (n.a):
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/section/32#stat usWarningSubSections licenses from the UK Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) to use copyright works for research and education. The CLA in turn pays fees and royalties to the copyright owners. External Link: UK Intellectual Property