WK1 Comment to Classmates Post 2

Response to Katie's Week 1 Blog
Katie's actual blog post:

Wk1- Reading:Copyright Issues, Parts 1-3

I feel like at this point we should all be well aware of what is copyright and what is fair use.  I know my industry (education) and my company takes both of these subjects very serious and frowns upon anyone who violates the policy.  As an educator if we don’t uphold the rules regarding copyright and fair use why would our students want to uphold the same policies?  I love that my place of work takes these 2 things very serious and even holds continuing education classes about these 2 topics to keep all of the staff and faculty up to date on the rules.  So this in not a topic that just gets swept under the rug in my environment, and no one turns their head and looks the other way if they see another teacher breaking the policy. What is it like in your environment?

Photo from opensourceway's photostream via flickr.

Another reason why I think the company I work for takes these policies so seriously is because we have a lot of material that is copyrighted and we don’t want anyone else to try and steal our copyrighted material, such as our school logo, which is very unique to us.  We always say in my office “ we have to protect the brand” whenever we our designing something that would require us to use the school logo.

One thing that I think is a growing concern is the ReMix culture. Don’t get me wrong I love some of those videos on YouTube that are remixed. I get a kick out of them, I post them on Facebook for other people to view, maybe I shouldn't be doing that. I also think, as the presidential election gets closer we will see more and more of those types of videos being created.  At some point we will have to decided how far is to far, what is the time limit one can use a video clip to remix something. 

Very interesting food for thoughts!

Katie Ross

Comment:

Katie,You ask what it is like in our environment? Well, it is non-existent in my own environment. I think that this is due to the lack of technology. This year as our older students have had the ability to do some research, we have begun teaching them about copy right and citing sources. The topic has never been brought up to the faculty at large nor is it a requirement for us to teach it to our students. However, my other upper grade teacher that uses technology and I both agreed that it was imperative that we begin teaching our students the importance of citing where you got your media and/or information. We told them (4th & 5th graders) that if they did not personally create or write what they are using, then they must tell who actually did. I too wonder when we will decide how far is too far when remixing work...