Copyright Laws

Before today I never considered the difference between plagiarism and copyright laws. Know that I have looked at the differences it is easy for educators to violate copyright laws. Some interesting loopholes that I discovered were that teachers can use materials from deceased authors without worrying about copyright laws. Teacher can also make up to seventy copies of legally obtained material to share with their classrooms.

The grey area of copyright that I discover involves motion pictures. After group and class discussion I decided is that under “Section 106 of the 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to do and to authorize others to do the following: To distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending”. This statement means that if a teacher obtained the material legally (thought personal purchase or on loan from a public library) that they have the right to show the content of that film in their classroom, as long as it has been approved by the Principal, District and parents.

As a future educator I understand the temptation to use copyrighted materials, however I believe that the creators of that material deserve create for their work. I believe that it is important that teachers understand and value copyright laws and try to abide to them to the best of their ability. If a teacher ever worried about using material in their classroom they should try to consult the publishers of that material.

My understanding of Fair Use laws is that using materials for educational purposes usually falls under Fair Use protection. However, after reading about Fair Use protection it seems that the creators of copyrighted material do not support this protection. As a future teacher I would be wiry of using this as my only protection in the classroom. I would still try to abide by Copyrights Laws to the best of my ability.

Teachers should educate their students about both plagiarism and copyright infringement laws. I have been in school for over sixteen years and the first time the differences were taught to me was in graduate school. Middle school and high school students should be taught about these laws so that they can learn to abide by them.