How much do you know about copyright law?
At a teacher meeting last night, we were given a 20 question, true/false quiz on copyright and acceptable use of materials in the classroom. Teachers need to be aware of copyright issues when creating presentations for class, allowing students to use copyrighted material for projects, and even when showing movies.
I’m savvy about copyright. Or so I thought. Now I feel like the chimp in the picture. You go ahead and take the quiz. I dare you.
I missed six of the questions on the quiz. Which prompted me to give you this link to a handy copyright chart, covering issues that typically arise in a classroom.
As a writer, sometimes copyright law may be stricter than it is regarding classroom use, because typically writers will use material for profit. Here’s a link to the U.S. Copyright Office page on copyright law. It’s a reference site to bookmark.
In today’s world of easy downloads of digital art, music, and literature we all need to be aware, to protect ourselves and protect our works. As teachers, we need to help our students learn to be media literate, and learn fair use of copyrighted works.
Now I’m going to brush up on a few of those questions I missed.
Hold the phone! The story you’ve been told is not the whole story! Martine Courant Rife, Bill Costanzo, Mike RobbGrieco and I will be at the 4 C’s conference for writing teachers next week in San Francisco to offer a saner, safer and more sensible way to understand copyright and fair use in the context of multimedia composition. There no T/F test and no royal purple chart involved— only critical thinking and reasoning.
Learn more at http://mediaeducationlab.com
Thanks for the heads up about the conference, and the link to your site!