Let’s Get Copyright Right

22 Nov Let’s Get Copyright Right

Reliable copyright resources, particularly in education, have traditionally been difficult to find. It is also a subject to which I am least comfortable with when assisting faculty.

I think I find copyright challenging because the laws aren’t cut and dry and they seem to frequently change. I also do not want to be the one who provides outdated and incorrect information to faculty. Between fair use and the TEACH Act it is difficult to disseminate law from “gray area.” Anytime a faculty member asks me about using a video or graphic in their course, my most frequent answer is “it depends.”

So this week, I set out to learn more about current copyright guidelines and rules and I thought I would share the wonderful resources I found. First off, The Center for Social Media website is a great resource for public media and assistance with fair use. Founded by the School of Communication at American University, the website shares public media including videos, documents, articles, and other learning objects. They also provide sample teaching materials including syllabi, case studies, documents, and best practices for fair use and enhancing media. The website also features a blog and lists sponsored events related to social media. If you need guidance on either learning about copyright or teaching copyright to your students, the website has an abundance of resources and related articles.

I found another great resource while reading the Chronicle of Higher Education website. Ewa and J. Patrick McGrail published an article recently titled: Copying Right and Copying Wrong with Web 2.0 Tools in the Teacher Education and Communications Classroom. This publication is meant to serve as a copyright guide for students publishing in video, audio, and Web 2.0 formats. However, it details guidelines applicable to teachers as well.  It offers an excellent and concise explanation of the U.S. copyright law (fair use) and The TEACH Act as well as provides scenarios to illustrate their approach to teaching copyright with Web 2.0. The most important information I learned from this article is that the laws are written with flexible language, mostly because compliance depends on a variety of factors (I also realized answering “it depends” was actually sound advice on my part).

Please feel free to share any other resources you may have on copyright education. I would like to gather all the applicable copyright resources and create a central place to access them in the near future.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Image from Flickr cc user Iain Farrell