Copyright...A Reflection
Wow! This week's look at copyright was familiar, eye opening and overwhelming all at the same time. As a musician, copyright it something that I hold near and dear. Musicians could not make a living if it weren't for the protection granted from copyright laws. Copyright laws force musicians to constantly come up with new ideas, styles, and even the media used to create their compositions. Because of this, music continues to evolve and grow. There are times we get frustrated because it seems that every idea we have has already been done, but that same frustration and challenge is what keeps the creative juices flowing.
Copyright extends so much farther than musical compositions. I still find the laws quite confusing. I almost felt as if I needed someone to sit down and translate all of the legal language in the 100+ page document. I think I have a good grasp on basics of copyright, but there are so many exceptions and exemptions that I would definitely make sure to check the laws before sharing anything.
As educators, Fair Use gives us a lot of leeway in materials that we can use, but it is not a free pass. Fair Use looks at purpose, nature of the work, amount of work to be used, and the effect on the market value of the original work. My students and I cannot just freely copy material for our coursework. I can use copyright materials if there is not other suitable works available, but I cannot simply photocopy and distribute the entire work to my learners. The materials I used must directly correlate to the subject and lesson that I am teaching. I can show video clips to help teach a particular lesson, but I cannot show a full movie to my class because they won a movie day as a reward for good behavior.
When using graphics for my classroom website, morning announcement videos, class time slide shows, and my online course, I have begun to strictly use graphics with creative commons licenses. Pixabay.com is quickly becoming one of my favorite sites for me and my learners to pull graphics from. I used to used Teachers Pay Teachers for all of my clip art. This was okay for my personal use, but if I ever wanted to sell my presentations or publish my materials to the web, I would need to make sure proper attributions are given, proper licensing is purchased, or I have received the proper written permissions to distribute those images. That is a lot of work for one or two graphics that do not make or break a lesson and it would be impossible for my kids to go through all of those steps.
I still have a lot to learn about copyright! This course definitely gave a better understanding of the law, but in order to truly understand and follow the laws, I will need to continue reading and looking at the wealth of information we were given throughout this course.