Teaching for Information Literacy

Understanding Copyright

At what point do concerns about safety become a fence preventing our students from participating in an increasingly flat world? Putting the ‘social’ into social networks allows us to freely exchange information. But with the free exchange of information comes the responsibility of how we share it, and how we give credit to the author of that information.

Check out this video, “A Fair(y) Use Tale” and learn some history of copyright

In the school library and classroom, we are often faced with the copyright challenges of when it is acceptable to copy something and how much of an item [book, website, music etc] we can copy. Faced with declining budgets and little time, we are tempted to go ahead and make the copies. But with the advent of file sharing, downloading and RSS, we must acknowledge and teach the ethics of information gathering and sharing.

Background on Canadian Copyright Legislation

Copyright Matters (the orange little booklet you should all have in your school)
Internet Citizenship from Media Awareness Network - overview and a list of links with more information about copyright and plagiarism.
Canadian Copyright Information - a set of links from Manitoba Education

Copyright Confusion

The Cost of Copyright Confusion for Media Literacy (pdf - 17 pages)

From the Executive Summary:

The fundamental goals of media literacy education—to cultivate critical thinking about media and its role in culture and society and to strengthen creative communication skills—are compromised by unnecessary copyright restrictions and lack of understanding about copyright law, as interviews with dozens of teachers and makers of media literacy curriculum materials showed.

The Generational Divide in Copyright Morality - David Pogue of the New York Times describes a discussion on copyright morality with college students:

Recently, however, I spoke at a college. It was the first time I’d ever addressed an audience of 100 percent young people. And the demonstration bombed.

In an auditorium of 500, no matter how far my questions went down that garden path, maybe two hands went up. I just could not find a spot on the spectrum that would trigger these kids’ morality alarm. They listened to each example, looking at me like I was nuts.

Finally, with mock exasperation, I said, “O.K., let’s try one that’s a little less complicated: You want a movie or an album. You don’t want to pay for it. So you download it.”

There it was: the bald-faced, worst-case example, without any nuance or mitigating factors whatsoever.

“Who thinks that might be wrong?”

Two hands out of 500.

 Doug Johnson in his post, Paradox Land , makes some recommendations for changing the focus of how we teach about copyright and intelletual property because "The mindset that “if we don’t know for sure, don’t do it” does not fit the needs of either students or their teachers. Changes I am thinking about recommending include:

1. Changing the focus of copyright instruction from what is forbidden to what is permitted.
   
2. When there is doubt, err on the side of the user. (Are we being "hyper-compliant"?)
   
3. Ask the higher ethical questions when the law seems to make little sense. (Look where it got Socrates. Well, yeah, there was that hemlock bit...)
   
4. Teach copyright from the point of view of the producer, as well as the consumer. (Does having others using your work without authorization or remuneration change your perception of intellectual property issues?)

How to legally use images, music and videos can be found on the Copyright Friendly Images and Music Search Tools Page.