"Copyright 101," by attorney Kate Thompson, is a great outline of the key points in intellectual property or copyright laws. The basis of copyright law is that people should be able to receive compensation for creative works and have control over how their work is distributed or used. Only the owner of the copyright may reproduce the work, create works derived from it, distribute or sell the rights to their work, and perform or display it publicly. However, fair use allows copyrighted material to be used for educational use, as long as you aren't just trying to avoid buying the materials. Educational use means that it copyrighted materials can be used for "teaching, scholarship, and research." Courts use four criterion to decide whether or not using copyrighted materials falls under fair use. They example the purpose of the use, and determine whether or not it had any commercial benefit, the nature of the work (if it's fact-based or creative), how much of the work was used, and whether or not the use would hurt the income that could be generated by the copyrighted work. Thompson provides examples of fair use and instances of copyright violation. For instance, a teacher can copy an article from a magazine and use it in their curriculum as long as the article is only for personal use, and he or she could even make multiple copies to solely be used in the classroom of that specific article. Videos can also be shown for educational use, as long as no admission price is charged. An example of copyright violation would be copying an entire textbooks (or a large majority) for a classroom so that the textbook doesn't have to be purchased. Finally, Thompson talks about works that in the public domain, meaning their copyrights were created before 1923, or the works were created by the U.S. federal government. She mentioned to be careful because many works do have exceptions, and a book form may be in public domain, but a film of the same story may not be.
I thought this was a good outline, and applicable to our class since we are starting to incorporate copyrighted materials into our presentations and coursework. I would say it was VERY broad, and brought up questions of how much is too much to use of a work before it becomes a violation. I also began to wonder especially how music falls into this category. Because I teach piano, I often have to tweak certain music arrangements for students, but I often wonder if this is copyright infringement, or if it falls under fair use for education and how much I can change, and whether or not it could be performed. Anyway, I believe this article made me want to learn more about the "gray areas" of copyright law, and made me think more consciously about making sure that I am very careful not to partake in copyright infringement.
This article can be found in ISTE Learning and Leading with Technology Vol. 32. No.9 , June/August 2005.
Copyright laws are something that really concern me. I know that there are websites and turotials out there that help teachers understand what they can and cannot do. I would like to attend a class or a seminar about copyright laws and fair use before I become a teacher. It all seems so confusing to me right now but I am sure that I will get the hang of it. A seminar about the do's and don'ts would benefit me because I do intend to use the Internet in my classroom. I will probably use everthing from images to videos so knowing the laws is very important to me. If administrators were ever to question my use of the Internet, images, or videos I would want to be prepared to show them that I am using these things the right way.
ReplyDeleteThis article ties in perfectly with the fair use videos O'Connor presented a week ago. After viewing those videos and reading your article review I still feel like the fair use guidelines are very much arbitrary. Because we will be creating our own videos soon I think it is important that we all have a good sense of the rules and regulations of fair use to avoid legal trouble. It is a little comforting knowing that educators and students have more freedom than previously thought. For example, in the past, one of my professors completely banned the use of copyrighted music from our PowerPoint Presentation. She suggested using a website that had a list of uncopyrighted music. All the songs weren't relevant and if she knew the fair use guidelines, the students wouldn't have been stuck with MIDIS music :(
ReplyDeleteI think this article is really important and useful. Knowing what can be and cannot be used is always good to know, especially if one is going to use it in a classroom (as a teacher or student). Iknow a lot of my classes do not allow alot of freedom in what can be used either in a presentation, PowerPoint, or on a paper because of the copyright laws. I think many teachers do not know what they are allow to use because they and we are not really informed about the law and regulations.
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