Week 3 Blog 5 - Comment on Classmate's Blog

This post is republished from Mr. Jarvis' blog. The post was originally posted on October 17, 2009 at http://www.mrjarvis.us/Granby_H.S./Blog/Entries/2009/10/17_Week_3_Wimba.html#

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"Week 3"

Saturday, October 17, 2009

I missed this Wimba session because I was in the hospital helping my wife recover from the birth of our second child. Below is my reaction after listening to the archive.

“There is no such thing as the 30 second, 6 second or 7 second rule!”
-Joe Bustillos

How does a digital media creator know that the images, videos, or sounds they use in their projects fall under “fair use”?

Fair use is a complicated topic and I am glad that this class devoted two entire Wimba sessions to it. One thing I can be thankful for is that teachers are mostly exempt from copyright infringement so long as they are using the media for educational purposes, therefore not infringing on the copyright holders ability to make money off of their project. The problem for me stems from allowing students to create projects using copyrighted information. This is a foggy area that I want to be sure I get right.

Does the fair use rule dealing with education include student work produced for a class? and if so, what happens when the media produced for class end up on YouTube where people viewing it do not have the education context?

One of my favorite discussions of what copyright laws do to creativity is a TED talk by Larry Lessig. In this talk, Mr. Lessig eloquently says, "You can’t kill the instinct that technology produces; we can only criminalize it. We can’t stop our kids from using it, we can only drive it underground. We can’t make our kids passive again; we can only make them, quote, pirates." (Lessig, 2007)



This is something that I have been preaching for some time now. We need to allow our students safe outlets for the creative juices that current technologies create. We need to teach them proper ways to "remix" and proper ways to cite. However, we cannot be afraid of them taking something that has already been said and turning it into something that has never been said in quite the same way.

The discussions in the Wimba were engaging and I am sorry that I could not partake in the session.

Some Highlights:

1. If there is a question, media creators are just one email away from getting permission.
2. Don’t use a whole piece, such as a song used for background music.

Sources:

Lessig, Larry (2007). Larry Lessig: How creativity is being strangled by the law. TED Talks. [Video}. Retrieved April 13, 2009 from http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_strangling_creativity.html

Saturday, October 17, 2009

1 Comment Manage Comments for this Entry
KHirt

Joe, First of congratulations on the second child! I, like you, agree with Larry Lessig. His idea that our students' creativity is being stifled rings true with me. Not only do I think students' creativity is being "killed," but educators' classrooms are too. I hate this but I am scared to use some amazing resources for fear of copyright infringement. I still use some of the material, but I make sure that I have purchased something from that source. For instance I use the animations from my textbook for my Vodcasts. Hopefully since I am using the material for educational purposes and because I have bought the book with CD of animations I will be not charged with copyright infringement.

Saturday, October 17, 2009 - 10:44 PM