As you are probably well aware, guidelines and practices governing what constitutes Fair Use of copyrighted material and what constitutes infringement of copyright are often unclear, convoluted, and themselves a matter of much academic and legal wrangling. Though many copyright references are available both in print and online, CWRL students and instructs should adhere to the University of Texas System Copyright Policy.

In addition to the official University of Texas System Copyright Policy, UT has outlined several resources to help guide instructors in questions of fair use including:
Crash Course in Copyright
Fair Use of Copyrighted Materials
Getting Permission
CONFU: The Conference on Fair Use

These resources are fairly extensive, and one can easily be intimidated with the large volume of text and the complex web of links and contingencies that one encounters. As such, a good place to begin in understanding the key issues involved is this flash- and audio- enhanced tutorial that presents fictional narrative of a UT instructor as she collects and employs various multimedia courseware materials for in use in her Geology 301 course and the copyright and fair use questions and obstacles she encounters throughout the process.

As you collect and plan your own class materials and assignments and encounter your own personal questions pertaining to fair use, a good resource to guide you is the Four Factor Fair Use Test. A perennially question that comes up is "how much of a copyrighted work can I safely use?" The answer is there is no magic number or percentage, no 10%, 20%, 30% or any percent rule. However, you should use the four factor fair use test in judicially determining how much of a work to use, and follow the University of Texas System Copyright Policy guidelines which advise, "be conservative. Use only small amounts of other's works. Also don't make any unnecessary copies of the multimedia work."

While all of the University's educational copyright guidelines are important to review, those dealing with electronic and multimedia materials are particularly important for CWRL instructors and students, and a few of these relevant resources are highlighted below:

Music

UT's Guidelines for Educational Uses of Music
Rules of Thumb for Music

Images

Rules of Thumb for Digitizing and Using Images for Educational Purposes
Educational Fair Use Guidelines For Digital Images

Video and Multimedia

Clearing Rights for Multimedia Works
Copyright Issues: Multimedia and Internet Resources

Finally, the most important factor in navigating these issues of copyright and fair use is protecting yourself. Individual liability for infringement is a very real and a very costly concern, and the most penalties for infringement are very harsh: the court can award up to $150,000 for each separate act of willful infringement. For added protection, CWRL instructors should consider limiting full access to their course websites and materials through password protected student accounts.