In today’s world, you would think teachers have enough to worry about with preparing their curriculum's, establishing lesson plans and ensuring they “get through” to each of their students. Yet, even with the far reaches of technology comes the potential infringement of copyright laws. As an educator, the last thing you would want to do is set the wrong example and potentially be breaking a law while trying to teach the minds of today to follow the rules. Therefore, it seems paramount that in order to retain the flexibility and creative nature of teaching, educators should understand the fundamentals of copyright laws. Here, I will go over a summary of information obtained from several sources, provide my reaction to the complex issue, and finally address how I and other future educators might integrate this information into our own teaching.

While conducting the research for copyright laws and its specific application to teaching, I reviewed a creative video, several resourceful websites and a few informative articles on the topic. The primary points that should be summarized are 1. What is “Copyright” 2. What does Copyright consist of 3. How it impacts us and 4. Exceptions and applications of copyright material. We see the first point clearly in the video “A Fair(y) Use Tale” by Professor Eric Fadden, as we are provided a creative source for all of this information from quick cut scenes derived from popular Disney titles. As familiar characters from Aladdin, Bambi and Toy Story break down copy right law phrase-by-word, we learn that Copyright is essentially any original work that can be seen or heard.

These original works consist basically of any form of an idea, including books, plays, dance music, movies and pictures. This does not protect the underlying idea or fact, but only the form it is manifested in. As seen throughout real world cases and examples, what it consists of is a constant battle of interpretation by even our political leaders. A great example would be the scenario on page 3 of the “Internet: Copyright and Fair Use” section of the Educational CyberPlayGround, Inc. website, in which we are introduced to the back and forth use of potential copy right infringement by Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama. Campaign tactics aside, the fact that Sony attempted to sue Mr. Romney over potential copyright infringement for including Obama singing a song seems to go to the far boundaries of what copyright actually consists of.

After understanding what copyright is and what it consists of, it’s important to know how it impacts us and what the exceptions might be. To be direct, as long as you aren't attempting to misuse copyright material for commercial gain, the typical consequences seem limited to a cease and desist action, referred to as a “Takedown Notice.” Although takedown notices can be abused and can be unfair and unreasonable in certain circumstances, there are legal protections, especially for teacher applications. These exceptions fall within the “fair use” laws, which allow the use for teaching, criticism, parodies, research, and news reporting. In addition, as of 2001, educational institutions that are accredited and nonprofit are further protected via the “Technology, Education, and Copyright Harmonization Act” (or TEACH Act). However, even with these additional buffers, there is a tremendous amount of detail, exceptions, and ambiguous interpretations of the rules, as demonstrated in the 2009 article, “Copyright, Fair Use, and Teaching and Learning Innovation in a Web 2.0 World” by Veronica Diaz, Tracy Mitrano, and Kathy Christoph.

With the piles and piles of information pertaining to Copyright and Fair Use laws, it initially seems overwhelming for the prospective teacher. However, upon delving into the various sources, it seems that where many applications are unfair and undefined, in the teachers’ arena a person faces little formidable legal consequence for the accidental infringement. (That is, as long as they adhere to the Takedown notice if found at fault.) While I understand the idea behind copyright protection for commercial gain, I think the two articles, including the aforementioned and the article “Getting Our Values around Copyright Right,” by Lawrence Lessig, explain in greater detail the nitty-gritty of copyright law and just how limiting it can be in our modern technologically driven world.

With all of this information on the topic at our disposal, I think teachers can take copyright laws at face value. We, as prospective educators, will have further reaching capacity on what we can and cannot use in our curriculum. This also exposes us to further scrutiny and as the NFL example in one of the sources suggested, we are still subject to overreaching abuse by copyright holders. Thus, going forward, we should always try and obtain permission from the source when necessary, cite it where proper and simply fix mistakes as they are brought to our attention. We can all speculate it is just a matter of time before our bureaucracy adjusts the outdated 1976 Copyright law in its entirety and allows for a better flow of information in our technologically driven world; so that ultimately educational expansionary pursuits such as Google’s “Book Search” project might see the light of day.