Hmmmm. I'm not sure how I feel about this one. Of course as a professional instructor I will do my best to abide by copyright laws, but, I also feel like fundamentally following these rules could possibly become too much. I wonder at what point does following them to the T become ridiculous? For example, if using one hour of patented music in a media project is an obvious violation of the 30 second rule, what about 5min? O.k. that's still pretty obvious, what about 1 minute then, or 31 seconds? Of course these are really extreme examples, but, technically you would be breaking the law by going over the limit even by that one second.
I really do believe in the reasonable enforcement of most intellectual property laws. I for one, actually believed Lars from Metallica, had a good point in his fight against Napster and free music sharing (too bad he will always be remembered as being on the wrong side of history-and a dork) Copyright laws protect innovation; and in the case against "free music sharing", I believe they enable outstanding talents' to build their careers and receive the compensation they've earned. However, I do see a difference in an educational setting. I believe educators, administrators, ed. lawyers...etc, should be focused on legally "freeing up", copyrighted material to the highest extent possible, not focusing their energies on enforcing them. I believe the k-12 setting should be considered a shelter from "many" of these laws- that are generally intended to protect profit, not block students from creating really cool Power Points. As it stands now, because many of the laws are not clear and are not common sense, people will continue to treat them as if they were simply J-walking; ultimately resulting in silly litigation-draining valuable school funds and tax dollars.
Great points Tom. Since last week I've been mulling over a variety of thoughts on copyright. I also generally agree in intellectual property rights and respecting copyright but... its tricky as you point out. Copyright laws are complex and I dare say rarely understood by users of content and as you point out the educational setting has and may require special considerations. I also feel like the music restrictions are some of the most ridicules. Are they really saying that if you are a music teacher you can not play the entirety of modern recording of Mozart in the classroom or the entirety of a Chuck Berry song in a History of Rock college course? If so then they're dreaming and creating jaywalkers out of thousands of educators. Once again I guess their is a good amount of gray area... if you buy a Chuckberry CD then it seems like you could play the entire recording... I guess...
ReplyDeleteI think that many of the copyright laws are kind of ridiculous for the point that you made that the laws do tend to have some grey area. I really disagree with them in regards to using them in an educational setting. Like you said, the laws are to protect people from profiting off the ideas of others, which I agree with. I think if it is presented in a classroom, however, as long as a work is cited and given credit to, I don't understand why it is still restricted by law. Time and effort should be put into trying to lift some of these restrictions.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point that you make, that so much time and so many resources have been poured into creating and enforcing copyright laws when they could be used to find ways to lighten the burden on the education system. Decriminalization of certain copyright issues would be really helpful to teachers. Let's face it, teachers aren't trying to steal others' work and make a profit, teachers are trying to teach using the best possible methods of presenting content. It's time to loosen the noose around the neck and let the educators breathe a bit.
ReplyDeleteSo much of what is created by students and teachers ends up on the internet and that can really change the conversation. It often goes beyond the classroom walls.
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