Bissonette, Aimee Cyber Law Corwin, 2009
Chapter 6: Copyright Law in the Classroom
I picked up this book and this chapter with the intent on comparing it to Hobb's Copyright Clarity book. The opening parts were almost the same with some exceptions. The chapter discussed what copyright law was but kept bringing up the topic of infringement. It made me feel like this author is much more scared of copyright than Hobb is. The chapter also talked about fair use. For the question of "Isn't fair use available as a defense to infringement with copyright?" Her answer, "It depends." I hope that she continues to bring out her point instead of leaving me confused. The four factors for fair use are mentioned just like Copyright Clarity.The author of this book believes that though fair use can be used in an educational setting, school should still provide plenty of listened resources so that the teachers don't have to go out of their way to find material that may result in infringement. This again shows me that though the author understands, she still stays on the safe side of copyright instead of living on the edge.
To reduce the risk of copyright infringement the author blatantly makes the statement that educations need to know the law and the need to contact the copyright owners to negotiate usage. This shocked me when I read it because how does the author expect every educator to contact every owner before using a copyrighted material? That would be impossible! The author goes on to talk about licensing material and greatly encourages schools to get licenses for using materials. I agree with licensing, especially if the copyright material is strict and does not fall under fair use.
This book discussed a term or materials that I had never heard about before: OpenCourseWare. It seemed really interesting from reading it. It is a website or a number of websites that host content of free classes and material for students and teachers. This could be a good tool that I will have to look into further. I also did not know about Learning object repositories. Both are good tools for people who don't quite fully understand copyright and don't want to get into trouble from the fear of the unknown. I would say every one needs to be educated but in the process, know your resources.
This book was an example of those books that Hobbs talks about in her book, where teachers are scared more than anything about anything copyright. They don't learn the full potential of copyright and fair use and what that means to the classroom. Books like these can still be good tools, yet a person should always be striving for new and deeper understanding of issues related to education.
OpenCourseWare started at MIT and relates primarily to colleges and universities, I believe. So, it may be less useful to K-12 teachers, perhaps.
ReplyDeleteThe Public Library of Science (PLoS) is a similar movement to make professional journals freely available. Again, it is initially more directed at colleges - but the idea is likely to cross over into K-12 education at some point.