This week's assignment was quite interesting. My school, like many others, has regular debates about what constitutes copyright infringement and what doesn't. I was glad to learn that anything used for an academic purpose is fair game. So I can show parts of movies in my class, or students can use them for their projects. I think.
The gray area for me comes in what constitutes "academic". (Pretty sure I'm not the only one.) If I use a song in the background of a video made for the school's drama club, is that ok as long as I don't sell DVD copies? I'm not sure. I've been using copyright-free music for the last few years, but I'd really like to have everything be fair game.
Our librarian is a big proponent of "when in doubt, just get permission". Apparently, if you contact the legal department of some copyright-holding corporation, their willing to give some leeway to schools.
I suppose any laws that cover an area this vast have to be complicated, but I would really like to see someone put together a straightforward approach to copyright laws for schools. Chances are, most schools are looking to do pretty much the same things. And none of us are trying to copyright our Elvis sighting. I hope.
No comments:
Post a Comment