Think your classes are dull now? Imagine what they’d be like if your instructors never used video clips, Web sites or even newspaper articles. Now thank your lucky stars for the fair use doctrine.

Temple BTMM professor Renee Hobbs recently investigated how much educators knew about the fair use doctrine, which allows citizens to use copyrighted material for a handful of acceptable purposes. She published her results in a study titled, “The Cost of Copyright Confusion,” which was released in September. Results revealed many of the educators interviewed didn’t know the nuances of the law and chose not to use copyrighted material for fear of violating it. That translated into “less effective teaching techniques” and failure to “take advantage of new digital platforms.”

How’s that for an excuse for lackluster classroom instruction?

Not good enough, apparently. Freshman music education student Ethan Heck said the results meant students get short-changed. “There’s more material out there that we could be having access to that we’re not pointed towards,” he said.

Christine Einerson, a freshman communications major, said learning is more important than the law. “As long as I learn something, I don’t care where the information comes from. I want my professors, if they are hesitating, to be more confident in the information because if they’re not going to get penalized for it and I learn, it’s a good situation for both,” she said.