Blog 2: Copyright

Wow, I did not realize how serious (and convoluted) copyright law as it pertains to the classroom is. When copyright laws were first instated no one could have fathomed a world-economy based almost entirely off of intellectual property. Hence, most copyright laws are fairly new, and there are always new loopholes and hoops for lawmakers to jump through in order to catch up with emerging technologies. This constant augmentation of copyright law makes understanding (an abiding) it extremely difficult.

In the past, I was always under the impression that copywritten media such as film, music, and images could be reproduced for the classroom so long as they were not exchanged for money or services. However, according to the website www.edu-cyberpg.com, strict copyright laws apply to almost any form of media (written or otherwise) unless specifically noted otherwise. For example, if a teacher desired to screen a film in a class they would only be allowed to show "up to 10 percent of the total or three minutes, whichever is less." This is very hard to believe having grown up in a school system where movies were a regular part of any pre-holiday class period.

There is some good news though. It seems that under the "fair use" rules for replication of copywritten materials there is some leeway for teachers and educators. As long as one abides by several rules governing "fair use," teachers can legally get away with re-producing a limited amount of televised/radio/internet media.

One area where copyright law seems to be especially pertinent to school teachers is photocopying worksheets/pages out of texts. This is fairly understandable as it severely hurts publishing companies if their customers are replicating materials meant for sale. However, with strained time schedules and minuscule budgets it becomes very obvious why teachers fall back on photocopies of handouts and examples.

I was happy to find in this world of apparent greed and legal mire associated with intellectual property, Creative Commons (http://creativecommons.org) has begun to offer "Some Rights Reserved" services that will allow people to more readily share their IP with those who need it most. It seems like Creative Commons has their hands in everything from internet radio to the Iraq War blogosphere to allowing photographers to modify metadata in order to share their photographs!