Yes, I have to admit the copyright discussion we had today really opened my eyes to how my school needs to work on following the copyright laws. I am sure some of it is that we need to be refreshed on some of the laws. However, I hate to admit that another reason is that we look the other way to try to save costs. We need to change this so we become better role models for our students and to make sure they at least understand the consequences of using someone's work illegally.
But, I have always had a hard time understanding laws because of all the grey areas involved. (My accounting mind of debits=credits has a hard time with the "but if".) So I thought I would do a little research to see if there was something that helped simplify the copyright laws. Here are a few resources I found.
Videos:
What is Creative Commons? - the video Dr. Zeitz shared with us that does a nice job explaining what creative commons is.
A Shared Culture - another video about creative commons that explains why it was created.
Articles:
Drawing that Explains Copyright Law - an article where the author writes about explaining copyright laws to a child.
A Teacher's Guide to Fair Use and Copyright - a website that takes the content of copyright laws and puts them in an educational setting (I especially liked The Fair Use Chart).
Copyrights and Copying Wrongs - a series of articles done by EducationWorld.com that gives decent explanations about the guidelines of the copyright laws.
Well these are just a few resources I found on the web. If you have any others, please let me know. I would like to discuss this with our media speciliast to see what her thoughts about copyrighting are and how we can teach to do what is right in our school to our teachers and students. Any information will be beneficial!!! And yes, I found my picture on flickr from the creative commons area!!! =-)
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Thanks for adding these links to copyright information. I am a media specialist, but with the changing technology, it is really hard to keep up with copyright. The AEA's usually have some good pamphlets and other materials. May even have links on their websites.
ReplyDeleteSara, I enjoyed your post and can completely identify with your debit=credit mind. I also prefer clear-cut yes/no answers. While some things in the copyright world seem to be straight forward, the gray areas are plentiful.
ReplyDeleteThanks for these resources, Stacy. I have added a link to our RWLD.
ReplyDeleteZ
A wise person once said (about copyright): "The only clear cut answer is decided in a court of law. Now ask yourself, do you want to be the one in court?" I always tell students (about copyright and life!) "Just because you can doesn't mean you should."
ReplyDeleteIs your class using Diigo or Delicious bookmarks? I think you'd find a lot of resources there for both copyright and creative commons.
Here are mine:
http://www.diigo.com/user/auntytech/copyright
http://www.diigo.com/user/auntytech/creative_commons
By the way, when I say Creative Commons to my professor friends, most of them look at me like I've gone off the deep end, but then they give me the same look about copyright as if we are somehow above the law." My point is that we need to be teaching these things to our undergrads! Or at the very least, making them aware! That's a critical part of every citizen's education!