Week Two - 9/6/10 - 9/12/10

Copyright. What an intimidating word it has turned out to be!  When I reflect upon what I learned this week, I think what frightens me about copyright is not flagrant misuse but the instances of copyright infringement that may occur but may not have been intentional.  I realize that lack of knowledge of the law does not make a person exempt from abiding by it,  but sometime things happen where you didn't realize you were doing anything wrong by making a copy of something for the classroom or to be used for a school project.

Prior to reading Simpson's text, I believed that to some extent, schools had a different set of copyright guidelines than the rest of the world.  Reason being - because they are educating our children.  Perhaps this is a weak reason but I believe that if anyone should have some flexibility in copyright, it should be educators.  I had no idea that schools had to follow the same rules of copyright that everyone else has to follow and honestly, I find it unfortunate that they must do so.

I do not mean to imply that all educators should be able to go crazy and copy chapter upon chapter of texts or go out and draw pictures of copy written characters such as Mickey Mouse, but if they are teaching a unit, say on Harry Potter, they should have access to and be able to share all things Harry Potter.  I know a publisher would cringe reading this comment because at the end of the day, one of the largest factors behind copyright is money but in my perfect world, schools would have access to any and all materials and be able to use them as much (or as little) as needed, regardless of copyright, to teach our children and money wouldn't be a factor.  I can dream, can't I?

P.S. Incidentally, the copyright image above is in the public domain, but just to be fair to the originating website, I found it here: http://www.clker.com/.