EDLD 5316 Week 3 Journal Reflection

WOW! This has been an intense week of learning! The focus of this week revolved around copyright laws and how those laws apply to education and educators. I learned about the Fair Use aspect of the copyright laws. Fair use clause allows teacher to use some copyrighted materials for educational purposes. In fact, teaching is specifically listed as an identified category that qualifies for the fair use section of the copyright law. The key to the fair use clause is the amount of copyrighted material used, and the purpose of the use. Limited amounts for educational purposes are covered by the fair use clause. I would highly recommend that every teacher read the fair use information article on copyright.gov's website.

I learned some surprising information on the quiz that I had to take this week regarding the copyright laws. In the scenario, a teacher submitted a written work of a student into a contest and the student's work won. The teacher did not tell the student or parents that the work was submitted into the contest because she didn't want to get the student's hopes up and then have to deal with disappointment if the student did not win. I assumed that since the work was created at school, that the school owned the work and could submit the work to the contest. I was wrong. I learned that the student has copyright protecton of the created work, and that the teacher should have gotten permission from the parent to submit the work to the contest. Because the student is a minor, the parent has the responsibility of making decisions on behalf of the child.

Do you know where copyrights are filed and issued? I thought there was a governmental department that took care of those things. I was wrong. It is not an office on its own. The copyright office is under the direction and part of the Library of Congress. Searching records at the copyright office will be challenging as well. Items copyrighted in 1978 to modern times are available online, but with limited search criteria. If you would like any information dating prior to 1978, you will need to physically go to the Library of Congress to search for it, or pay someone to do the searching for you. I'm going to be honest with you here: I fall in the pay someone to search for me category.

As part of my readings this week, we read A 21st Century Copyright Office: The Conservative Case for Reform written by Stephen Tepp and Ralph Oman. The authors have provided a well written paper giving the history of copyrighting in the United States of America, and how the copyright office became a part of the Library of Congress. Not only did the authors give the history of the copyright office, they also thoroughly explained the problems with the current system. Additionally, they presented a well thought out plan to separate the copyright office from the Library of Congress. I must admit, the plan is intriguing and I think plausible. I would encourage everyone to read the paper. The history information in the paper alone is worth the read.

References:

Copyright.gov. (n.d.) More Information on Fair Use. Retrieved from: https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/more-info.html

Hudson Institute. (2015). A 21st Century Copyright Office: The Conservative Case for Reform. Retrieved from: https://www.hudson.org/research/11772-a-21st-century-copyright-office-the-conservative-case-for-reform