Week 1 Discussion: Copyright - Response to Rowdy

@ Rowdy Granado

Rowdy wrote:

Copyright has always been a major issue in my classes as I teach video production and broadcast classes.
I try to have a lesson on Copyright each year before we even start the course to try and explain the best I can to middle schoolers what Copyright actually is. Most adults don’t even understand Copyright law, so you see my struggle with teaching this to this age group.

In the video it was mentioned that a common misconception is “if I don’t charge for it, it’s not a violation.” This has been a common mistake in education and using it for “school purposes.” Many of our students and fellow teachers always seemed to try and use this excuse. One way I got around copyright when I was a producer for Texas Tech University, we actually had an ASCAP and BMI license that ended up covering the university as a whole, so we got to use several songs in our commercials without violating that Copyright.

A couple of areas that I still haven’t found a clear explanation are on parodies and fair use, the actual amount of footage you can use without permissions.

I liked all of the myths that were shown in the video. Maybe you can add the other violation of actually playing music you purchased to a house full of people or a classroom full of students being a violation of Copyright and distribution (unless of course, this has been changed again).

Rowdy-

There seem to be a variety of sources on the Internet that describe how much of a work can be used without permission. I printed out a Copyright and Fair Use Guidelines for Teachers PDF from Technology & Learning earlier this year.  It can be found at www.techlearning.com. There is also information at www.halldavidson.net.

I think some of the restrictions are unenforceable. According to the Technology & Learning PDF, you can view video as long as it is legitimately acquired, used in a classroom or non-profit situation “dedicated to face-to-face instruction,” and used for instructional (not entertainment or reward) purposes. They go on to say that video used for integration into multimedia or video projects must give proper attribution to the copyright holder. Students are supposed to be able to use 10 percent, or 3 minutes (whichever is less) of “motion media.”

Personally, I respect people’s right to their intellectual property, but I find many of these rules stifling. They can paralyze.  The more I read and listen to discussions about freely sharing music, art, written works, and other things affected by copyright, the more I am motivated to contribute to that effort. I think there should be a sort of “commons” database put together by teachers to provide a wide range of resources that can be used for school projects. I’d be happy to contribute pics and video clips to something like that. It would even be cool to collaborate with other teachers so that someone could put out a request and others could help them out. For example, if you need 3-5 minutes of an instrumental music track in a particular genre, someone in the group might be willing to produce that.  I’m all for being a renaissance person, but I can’t draw, compose, or create everything we might want to use for class projects myself.  And I can’t always find what I need on Creative Commons.

By the way, the image on this blog post is another photo I took myself because I was freaked out about accidentally violating someone's copyright. Anyone who wishes to use this photo has my permission to do so.