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Image courtesy of http://kobilevidesign.blogspot.com/ |
Despite all of the video and reading on copyright, I still find it a sticky situation.
Everything seems so simple, but meeting the established conditions makes it a bit confusing. Trying to understand the specifics is probably the main reason people violate copyright. It’s there so I must be able to use it mentality explains why some people think the internet is a supermarket and a means to gather any source that doesn’t have a watermark.
When I think about my teaching colleagues and what we use for resources in the classroom, we are clearly in violation of copyright and fair use! As educators, I know we are guilty of logging on and printing off any and everything without thinking twice about the possible violations we are committing. Like many people in the videos, we don’t ever think anyone would seriously take the time to come after the “ good teacher”. Yet, educators chase down students about plagiarism constantly. Doesn’t seem quite fair.
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| Screenshot from the Creative Commons website |
As an artist, I am very particular about who has access to the things I have created.
Do you really know what I went through to produce the image you took five seconds to download? Did you bother to acknowledge my efforts or did you just use it to meet your needs?
As a consumer I think there is a need to make more of an effort to seek permission, give credit and stop violating copyright laws. As a creator I feel there is a need to protect what you have created, but use the systems to your advantage. Using sites like Creative Commons can benefit an artist trying to establish himself in the growing creativity fields.
Tracye your post resonated with me in that I too never thought twice about grabbing work offline. The main reason being not because I do not value the work of others, but I was never taught the ins and outs of copyright. I think Creative Commons is one of the best things to come along and I have been using them for my photographs. I think you are right about accountability. If we as educators/administrators hold students accountable for their work, we as educators must be accountable for ours and what we provide to students. Leading by example is the only way. Although the line of what is fair and not fair is quite a blurry one, you are absolutely right that we must at least make the effort.
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