Lesson 15

Jamye Swinford

The major resource that I turn to in terms of copyright issues is our local educational service center. There are many copyright ‘experts’ at the center, including our classmate, Nancy Donaldson.

One site that I found on the Internet was billed as The Copyright Website at http://www.benedict.com/. This site endeavors to provide real world, practical and relevant copyright information of interest to anyone. The Basics link on the page takes you to information on why you should register, how to build your own copyright notice, how long copyrights last, fair use issues and public domain and international copyright information.

The site also covers information on visual arts, film and art, including streaming video and MPEGs, audio arts, music and sound including streaming audio and MP3s.

Digital arts, Internet issues and software are also covered.

The Resources link provides supplementary sources of copyright information, including miscellaneous news stories, and international sources of information. If you can’t find an answer to your question there is a legal services link that can possibly help you.

I also found the Fair Use Test at http://www.utsystem.edu/OGC/IntellectualProperty/copypol2.htm#test interesting. This provides a good rule of thumb to use before using materials in question. The Fair Use Test allows you to ask yourself four questions about the work in question:

These questions are:

What is the character of the use?
What is the nature of the work to be used?
How much of the work will you use?
What effect would this use have on the market for the original or for permissions if the use were widespread?

This site is a wealth of information—especially to teachers and students. A lot of answers to common questions are located right here.

Teachers using technology in the classroom should understand how important it is to recognize copyright issues, not only for copyright violations, but also for plagiarism in the classroom. The issue used to be students copying from books and encyclopedias. Now students think nothing of copying and pasting from the Internet. Students should be aware of the correct format for web sources when citing their work. Teachers should guide students in this endeavor. We have a video-technology class at our school, and we have had several questions come up regarding music, trademarked objects, such as soft drink cans, and graphics found on the Internet. This page will be a valuable resource for that class as well as others.