Hi Doug
I think that much of what you have said and posted makes sense from a teaching
perspective,
particularly when it applies to videos made by amateurs and posted to the World
Wide Web for all to
see for free anyway.
But if we are to teach the teachers and students about the ethical use of other's
stuff, regardless
of its format, are we in a position to pick and choose when we will be ethical or
not? Is that not
a little like saying stealing from a large chain store is okay because they have
heaps of $$$ and
the price of theft is built into the price of the goods, but don't do it from your
local corner
store? Is it okay to show a movie because Warner Bros or Fox are multi-billion
companies but don't
photocopy a book I've written because I am such small fry?
Even if we are not the copyright police, do we not have a responsibility to be a
role model? Under
copyright law in Australia, if I direct or knowingly allow another person (student
or teacher) to
breach copyright I can be prosecuted as well as that person. If a supervisor
directs me to breach
copyright then I need to keep a written diary to show that I was directed to do so.
(Whether any
prosecutions have taken place is another issue, but certainly we are told that the
buck stops with
the individual not our education authority if we are taken to court.)
Don't know where Jamie would stand if he knowingly directed people to breach
copyright - how
rigorously do copyright owners pursue breaches in the US? I know some of the
multi-nationals are
really on to it because there are often cases on the news here where they have
tried to close down
small businesses because they have used "copyrighted" names. Two cases - the first
were two ladies
actually called Thelma and Louise who tried to open a coffee shop called "Thelma
and Louise", and
another company who thought they owned the rights to the name ugg boots but found
out that that is a
generic name that has been used throughout Australian and New Zealand for ever for
a style of
footwear. It costs 000s to fight these companies in court but the multi-nationals
take it to the
end. even if they lose, they've put the little ones out of business because of the
legal fees.
I don't know what the US arrangements are, but here our education authorities (in
most cases state
education departments) pay a per student copyright fee that allows Australian
teachers quite a lot
of freedom in what we can use and how, and we are expected to work within these
boundaries.
So, even if the rules/laws don't make sense, or we don't agree with them, does that
mean we still
have the right to break them when it suits us? Are we sending the right message to
the kids?
Love a good debate ...
Barbara
Barbara Braxton
Teacher Librarian
COOMA NSW 2630
AUSTRALIA
E. barbara.288@bigpond.com
Together we learn from each other
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