Educator’s Circle
by: Aleia Beecher MEd., M.A.
March 15, 2020
Ctrl C + Ctrl V: Do You Copy Right?
What is Digital Copyright?
If you are a consumer of digital information and especially if you are an educator, chances are that you regularly face the challenge of using digital content that is owned by someone else. Like me, you may have also wondered about what to use and, or, how to attribute it. Part of digital literacy is understanding how to manage issues of digital copyright, to ensure that material which even appears free online, is used appropriately.
The World Intellectual Property Organisation (2020) describes copyright (or author’s right) as those rights which creators hold over the literary and artistic works they produce. Thus, a range of works from books, images, paintings and music, to software, drawings, maps, films, databases and advertisements — just to name a few — are included. While copyright protects original content and is a term you may have heard being used for a long time, digital copyright is a more modern reference to the rights which holders of digital technologies have to safeguard their work from infringement.
Watch the video below to learn more about copyright and how copyright law protects both authors and users of creative works.
“When you have wit of your own, it’s a pleasure to credit other people for theirs.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy
Intellectual Property
Intellectual property is a term used to describe property we create but cannot touch, such as the products of our human intellect. Your intellectual property can be protected by copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets and patents. As educators, we do not want to be misguided into misrepresenting an individual’s intellectual property as ours. Thus, the short video below can help you to understand how to recognise an individual’s intellectual property so you can treat with it respectfully.
Information Ethics: How do You Copy Right?
As an educator you must ensure that your digital literacy precludes you from participating in circumstances where you do not copy right. With the ease of access to resources online, participation in unethical digital practices can make copyright infractions seem almost harmless. Downloading and sharing of information is often done without a cursory thought. However, you must become so familiar with the legal framework which protects the intellectual property of individuals, that you never infringe on it! Digital copyright issues are also sometimes grey areas for students and many inadvertently participate in this as they try to complete assignments. When you model to students how work should be correctly attributed, it is likely that you will engender these practices so they too will follow.
Does your school have a Copyright Policy?
The importance of having a copyright policy for your school cannot be overemphasised. Copyright policies basically delineate the acceptable procedures which should guide the sharing of information within an organisation and in their absence, chaos may ensue. This policy also will provide a handy guide for students as it will outline the standards to which their work must be compliant.
Johnson (2020) suggests the following six steps in preparing a Copyright Policy, which you may be able to adapt for application to your school:
1. Tap your organisation for input and try to build a small team.
Helpful suggestions for issues to address in your policy can come from a variety of departments. In addition to legal, compliance, and library/ information services (if you have that function), expand the policy team to include IT, marketing and corporate communications.
2. Establish your policy objective.
Be clear on why your organisation is implementing a copyright policy. Maybe the goal is for your company to fulfil its obligations under copyright law. Perhaps it is to provide employees with a uniform approach to addressing copyright issues. State the reason concisely as it helps to establish context for the employees.
3. Define your expectations for how employees manage materials in a copyright-compliant manner.
Make the descriptions concise and relevant to your company and your industry. Be sure your policy includes examples of information that is copyright-protected AND of information that is not copyright protected, and also examples of activities that trigger copyright issues and of some that don’t. And then describe how all staff are expected to handle information in a copyright-compliant manner. In the beginning, the policy might just say that employees are NOT to download information from journal-sharing sites or their academic institutions, and that such behaviour will not be tolerated.
4. Clarify copyright’s reach across formats.
When it comes to copyright, pixels are as protected as paper. Be sure your policy clearly explains that copyright covers content across multiple formats. Employees are often surprised to find out that content is copyright-protected whether it’s in a newspaper, or in an electronic newsletter, or on a freely available website or blog.
5. Outline compliance procedures.
Identify who is responsible for answering compliance questions within your company. Explain the steps employees should take to determine if copyright permission is needed and to request or secure permissions.
6. Create guidelines for the use/sharing of your organisation’s own copyrighted materials.
How should employees handle the issue of works for hire with contractors and other non-employees who produce work for the organisation? When is it okay to distribute your organisation’s own materials as part of education trainings, either internally or externally? (p. 1).
The Cost to “Copy Wrong”
Frattolillo (2017) believes that copyright protection of digital content is an extremely relevant problem of today’s Internet because “content digitalisation and high-performance interconnection networks have greatly increased the possibilities to reproduce and distribute digital content” (p. 282). In the address below, Reid (2012) provides rough estimates of the effects of the losses and liabilities that can be incurred due to copyright infringements.
Creative Commons Licences
Creative Commons Licenses are one of a myriad of open licenses which you can use to access, use and share the works of other authors, without worry of copyright infringement. These are available under a special arrangement which grants baseline rights for these works to be used once they are not modified or used for profit (Creative Commons, 2020). Though they vary in what combinations they allow content to be distributed, these licenses are a great place for you to start when moving towards the implementation of fair digital copyright practices in your organisation. For more information on Creative Commons Licenses, look for their icon or just click on the website below. Let me know how you go, by sharing your thoughts in the comments!
Aleia Beecher is an educator with two decades of experience ranging from the primary to secondary and tertiary levels of the education system. She has taught previously in Caribbean schools, but now teaches in Australia where she resides. Aleia holds a Master of Arts in Education, with a major in Curriculum and Instruction and a Master of Education in Educational Administration. She is currently a doctoral candidate in Educational Leadership with an emphasis in Higher Education at the University of the West Indies.
References
Adafruit. (2020). Educators Banner. [Photograph]. Retrieved from: https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/4dfb0c82-ad73-4c49-9645-eca3fb75fd60
Creative Commons. (2020). The growing commons. Creative Commons. Retrieved from: https://search.creativecommons.org/
Frattolillo, F. (2017). Digital copyright protection: Focus on some relevant solutions. International Journal of Communication Networks and Information Security (IJCNIS), 9(2), 282–293.
Gigya. (2020). Comments. [Photograph]. Retrieved from: https://developers.gigya.com/display/GD/Comments
Herrero, A. D. (2020). Copyright. [Photograph]. Retrieved from: https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/5d50fc20-31a3-41e1-9f99-973cd8950488
Intellectual Property Office. (2015, November 27). IP BASICS: What is intellectual property? [Video File]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYiXTKbdNr4
Johnson, B. (2020, February 25). Working at a Life Science startup? You need a copyright policy (+ 6 Steps to create one!). Copyright Clearance Centre. Retrieved from: https://blog.ted.com/the-numbers-behind-the-copyright-math/
Killosophy, C. J. (2020). Quotable quote. Goodreads. Retrieved from: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/464015-when-you-have-wit-of-your-own-it-s-a-pleasure
Mohanty, A. (2012, September 18). Copy Right. [Photograph]. Retrieved from: https://spicyip.com/2012/09/copyright-rules-2012.html
Rasoong. (2014). Copyright Rules for Elementary Students. [Photograph]. Retrieved from: https://edu.glogster.com/glog/copyright-rules-for-elementary-students/1n7rvb0u247
Reid, R. ( 2012, March 20). The numbers behind the copyright math. TedBlog. Retrieved from: https://blog.ted.com/the-numbers-behind-the-copyright-math/
[US Copyright Office]. (2019, October 30). What is copyright? [Video File]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukFl-siTFtgWorld
World Intellectual Property Organisation. (2020). Copyright in the digital world. Retrieved from: https://www.wipo.int/ip-outreach/en/ipday/2016/ip_digital.html
