Copyright? Or copywrong?

This week, our assignment was to read an article on the internet about copyright.  This is an issue that seems to come up a lot, especially as the internet continues to grow in power, and file sharing programs continue to become more and more popular.  While I personally download a good portion of my music from the internet, I have paid for every minute of it.  All of my papers are my own, and if I quote something from the internet, I will usually reference my source in a bibliography, so I never thought about copyright very extensively.  But after this assignment, I began to think about copyright laws differently.  So here are five questions concerning copyright law:

1. What selection did you choose to read?
My selection for this assignment was "Copyright 101 for Educators" by Wesley Fryer.  I originally tried reading material from the copyright "official" website, but it was really long and kind of confusing.  This article was short, simply written, and easily understood.  Many of the issues surrounding copyright were clearer to me after reading it.

2. What is copyright?
Copyright is "a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U.S. Code) to the authors of "original works of authorship," including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works." (Fryer, 2003).  In other words, it's the way the government protects artists and businesses from others using their creations without consent or pay.

3. What are some of the issues around copyright for teachers?
While there are laws that protect education from extensive copyright law, teachers do need to be aware of the material they are using for classroom instruction in regards to what is used and where it will be stored later on.  Teachers need to be aware of what their students are using for their projects/papers.  They also need to understand that copyright law is a constantly evolving circus of changing rulles and guidelines, so awareness of current law is important.  www.copyright.gov has a lot of information to wade through, but would also be the most up-to-date.

4. What is Fair Use?
Fair use is determined by these factors:

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work            (Fryar, 2003)

In other words, fair use is the set of guidelines that determines whether or not a copyrighted work can be used legally by another individual or not.

5. What are you going to do differently based on this information?
Personally, before reading this article, I used to steal pictures off of the internet like crazy.  I never really thought about the fact that those pictures are the creative property of another human being.  WHile I understand that images can be used in projects such as powerpoint projects, I do need to be aware of how that powerpoint is going to be shared.  If it is within a classroom or with a small, private, nonprofit audience, then it can be used.  So I need to be careful how such projects are even displayed.  Private sites are fine, but displaying these images on a public site or non-educational basis is dangerous.  If I can do everything possible to document sources in every situation, then I can avoid working in any gray area, or worse, allowing students to see me "steal" copyrighted material right in front of them.