A lot of confusion surrounds the exact meaning of "fair use" and where to draw the line for copyright infringement in academic use of intellectual property. Copyright is enshrined in law.Fair use is nothing more than generally accepted guidelines, and is not enshrined in law. It's a grey area. Teachers can avoid copyright infringement by using materials covered by Creative Commons and public domain materials. The following resources should be helpful.
Visual Media Creative Commons and public domain resources Many materials on these sites are free to use, but not all. Bing has copyright materials mixed in and you must use filters. Creative Commons offers links to various sites that you must filter for public domain materials. Everystock specifies the license type of each photo.
Everystockphoto These photos come from many sources and are license-specific. You can view a photo's license by clicking on the license icon, below and left of photos.
CreativeCommons offers links to independent organizations. Regardless of which independent search you use, always verify the work is actually under a CC license by following the link.
BingImageshas a filter button which brings up a license filter. Remaining images fall under the selected license agreement.
Students own their work, even as minors. Teachers are granted a narrow license to grade and, if part of the assignment, display their work and submit it to plagiarism sites. In all other respects it belongs solely to the student. Student privacy rights and copyright issues are developing as the growing amount of online academic applications and student information software blend student work and information with corporate copyrighted products.