

How a Teacher Made $1 Million Selling Lesson Plans - designtofly
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-09-24/how-a-teacher-made-1-million-selling-lesson-plans

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ktsmith
I'm waiting for TPT to get sued for copyright infringement. From what I've
seen of plans purchased by my wife and/or her school they tend to be
distributed with copy protected content that have specific licenses preventing
commercial redistribution. The plans will have "source" links included at the
end but the distribution of the material is still happening and only after the
plan has been paid for. Since TPT gets a percentage of the sale or a yearly
fee I would expect the argument to be that TPT directly profits from the
copyright infringement.

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jcampbell1
Between the teaching exception for copyright and the DMCA safe-harbor, I am
not sure the lawsuit is a slam dunk. At the end of the day, major educational
publishers might be forced to submit DCMA requests or sue teachers/schools
(which would never happen). It would be far smarter for the big educational
publishers to buy this thing back for mega-bucks rather than launch a lawsuit
they could lose.

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bradleyland
I'm afraid that's not how it works at all. TPT is selling these materials to
other teachers. They are, in effect, a publisher.

The teaching exception means that a teacher in a classroom can show a
copyrighted piece as part of her lesson plan. It does not mean that you can
"package" a lesson plan that includes the same materials, then sell them to
other teachers.

If it were possible to use the teaching exception in this way, all educational
book publishers could use any image they want without paying for it. I've
worked with a children's educational book publisher for the last 10 years.
They have to buy all copyrighted materials used in their books.

A caveat. I've never seen a TPT lesson plan, so maybe I'm unclear on how they
"package". Specifically, I use the term package to mean that the actual
copyrighted materials are included with the file you receive. TPT could get
around the copyright issue by inserting reference placeholders, then instruct
the purchaser to acquire the images on their own, but that's a significant
amount of work. I would be surprised if that's how they were packaged.

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jcampbell1
> The teaching exception means that a teacher in a classroom can show a
> copyrighted piece as part of her lesson plan.

> If it were possible to use the teaching exception in this way, all
> educational book publishers could use any image they want without paying for
> it.

Your logic is flawed here. TPT is selling lesson plans and live teaching
materials, not books. (Or at least they could reasonably make this argument)

Also, the packages typically include references. Teachers using these
materials should be aware that they are potentially infringing on copyright,
thus could be sued.

Like I said, TPT could be saved via DMCA, and the teachers are the ones that
could be sued. The teachers would then be protected by the teaching exception.
My point was that the lawsuit is not an obvious winner.

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bradleyland
> Your logic is flawed here.

It might be, but we're talking law, not logic. Copyright law has no obligation
to logic.

> TPT is selling lesson plans and live teaching materials, not books. (Or at
> least they could reasonably make this argument)

They can call them moon modules, and it wouldn't matter. Copyright law has no
concept of "book" or "lesson plan". Copyright protects the work. It doesn't
matter if you're redistributing prints of a photo, or selling a JPG over the
internet. Copying and redistributing a copyrighted work (in any form) is the
violation.

> Also, the packages typically include references.

As do many books, but it doesn't exempt them from copyright obligations.

> Teachers using these materials should be aware that they are potentially
> infringing on copyright, thus could be sued.

This is where you have it backwards. The teachers who use the materials
(probably) aren't breaking any laws by using the materials. They're covered by
the teaching exemption. TPT, however, has copied and distributed the works in
exchange for money. That is a pretty clear violation of copyright expectation.

> Like I said, TPT could be saved via DMCA, and the teachers are the ones that
> could be sued. The teachers would then be protected by the teaching
> exception. My point was that the lawsuit is not an obvious winner.

TPT, being in the position of a facilitator, might be safe, but there are two
types of teachers in this equation. There are teachers using the lesson plans,
and teachers selling the lesson plans. Those selling the lesson plans are at
risk, IMO.

Simply being in the teaching profession doesn't automatically exempt you from
copyright law. Laws are largely concerned with acts and context. Copying and
distribution are both acts. If the context is that of teaching (as in the act
of teaching, not the employment), then there is an exemption. Specifically, a
teacher may copy and distribute (by incorporating it and showing it to
students) a copyrighted work without penalty, provided the teacher is in the
act of teaching.

I agree that the lawsuit is not a slam dunk -- very few lawsuits are -- but I
don't think this for the same reasons as you.

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jcampbell1
My apologies for my previous comments. I was completely forgetting about the
teachers that are selling stuff. I justifiably feel quite stupid now.

I fully agree that there are teachers on this site ripping off copyrighted
materials and making a profit from doing so. They can and should be sued, and
they will likely have no protection from their school districts nor unions.

I am tempted to find out who this person making $1M and find the dinosaur
drawings in the dinosaur lesson plan, and then find who paid the illustrator
to draw these things and let them know they are someone is making $1M on their
back.

You have successfully reversed my opinion on this company 180 degrees.

~~~
ktsmith
> I am tempted to find out who this person making $1M and find the dinosaur
> drawings in the dinosaur lesson plan, and then find who paid the illustrator
> to draw these things and let them know they are someone is making $1M on
> their back.

It's also possible that particular plan author is doing everything by the
book. There are plans that I've seen that are using properly licensed
materials or that use original artwork. My wife is putting together some plans
that contain her original materials and illustrations created specifically for
the plan by another teacher as an example.

The reason for my comment at the top of this thread is largely due to the
number of plans that appear to be not compliant with copyright law and
continuing press about how much money some (very few) individuals have made on
the site. I have no opinion on any suits resulting from use of the site being
winnable for either side.

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akldfgj
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3989803>

"Kindergarten Teacher Earns $700,000 by Selling Lesson Plans Online"

May 2012

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baseh
Not sure of the outcome, ( Marenem vs Jump was behind paywalls) but a company
seemed to have sued.

[http://www.macon.com/2012/06/12/2056692/north-carolina-
compa...](http://www.macon.com/2012/06/12/2056692/north-carolina-company-
suing-warner.html)

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marcamillion
This seems like something that Patio11 could have (or still can) capitalize
on.

It seems a natural progression from generating Bingo Cards, to branching out
to lesson plans to facilitating the sale of user-generated lesson plans.

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patio11
It might have worked. There's a few reasons why BCC works. The fact that I
"get" teachers is one of them, but that's far from the most lucrative skill I
developed. Having a list of ~50k teachers for a newsletter would help sell
activities but, honestly, I think I'm sort of done with that market until I
have school-aged kids.

~~~
marcamillion
Well....always something to keep in your back pocket. You never know when you
can come up with a way to leverage that list powerfully.

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DrStalker
What stops lesson planning being done at a higher level than per-teacher?
That's obviously how it is happens now making TPT a great resource but why are
schools/states/federal bodies not providing the lesson plans that are needed
instead of making each teacher do something unique?

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jetti
Some schools/districts do that. It turns out though, that many teachers want
to control their own classroom and do their own plan. One of the gripes my
fiance had while student teaching and then subbing was that she wasn't in
control of her lesson planning. One of the issues with the Chicago Public
School strike was that the teachers weren't able to create their own lesson
plans.

Standardizing the lesson plan eliminates (or greatly reduces) the ability for
the teacher to be creative in their classroom and teaching. On top of that, a
standardized lesson plan would also be hard to work around in case there were
areas that took the students longer than expected.

