Mr. Copyright in action!"I read your paper and I search for the name of person whom you are writing about and I found an essay almost exactly the same as yours, what can you say about that?" Does this phrase sound familiar?
It is extremely important to have our student know about copyright laws. When I first asked for a presentation, many students went go off the board copying and pasting pictures and when I asked for a report they also copied and pasted, they will do this even if I specify in the instructions that they cannot copy and paste. There has to be another way of having them recognize the importance of following copyright laws. I had omitted the most important lesson, they might not have known the term copyright, the consequences of copyright infringements, and impact of these.
First and most important, they need to understand what a copyright is. As defined by The Copyright Society of the USA, a copyright is a right given to the author or creator to copy, publicly, and modify their work in a certain way. With this definition, now we can conclude that if they are not the authors or creators then they cannot copy it, modify it, or publicly it. There is, however, a copyright limitation referred to as fair use. Fair use permits the copy of copyrighted works if being used for educational or research purposes. Court will look at several factors when applying fair use, yet some of these factors considered will include: amount of work copied, purpose, and if there is any value gained in the use of the copyrighted work.
Lets make our students aware that they cannot:
- Copy all pictures found online even if not blocked
- Download "free" music
- Copy essays or reports as it were their work
Instead we can give them ideas to where they can find resources without breaking the law. Here are some websites that can be used to download, in which they will charge a minimal amount to choose from a variety of resources or some depending on the use it might permit the usage of resources at no cost.
- www.dreamstime.com
- http://www1.free-clipart.net/net
- http://freedigitalphotos.net
- www.cartoonstock.com
This video can also be used to explain what copyright is:
And students can go to http://www.copyrightkids.org to learn about copyrights, how to ask for permission, and even take a quiz.
See you later - virtually!
-Becky
References:
Youtube(2010). Copyright basics. Retrieved from http://youtu.be/Uiq42O6rhW4.
The Copyright Society of the USA(2007). Welcome to Copyright kids. Retrieved from http://www.copyrightkids.org/
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