Copyright is claiming ownership of your own work (creative and intellectual), and letting everyone else know that they either have to ask for your permission and/or pay to use your product. These products range from design ideas to movies to software code to pictures from Google. There are a few basic guidelines that your work must follow to be considered copyright eligible. Your work must be represented in a physical medium, must show original creative input from the author (you), and it cannot be a name or commonly used phrase. Copyright’s purpose is to protect and promote creativity and original thought. This benefits society as a whole.
Copyright Infringement and Fair Use
Copyright can be violated when someone other than the original author copies or uses the work without permission from the owner (see previous paragraph). This is called copyright infringement. This can occur from duplicating the original work, or even using work that has been altered, yet is still “substantially similar” to the original work. To use a copyrighted work legally, contact the author and request their permission. The main exception to copyright infringement is Fair use policy. While this policy contains guidelines that allow some usage without permission, it is only a protection against copyright infringement accusations. The following four factors are considered for fair use. First – What is the purpose and character of the use? The fair use favors non-profit, educational, criticisms and commentaries, etc. Second – What is the nature of the work to be used? Fair use favors factual and published work. Third – How much of the work will be used? Fair use favors a small portion of the whole work. Fourth – What is the effect of the use on the market for the work? Fair use favors no effect on the market, or licensing/permission was unavailable for the original work.
An example of copyright infringement is when teachers copy large sections of a consumable workbook either for multiple students or to convert into an online course. While this is for educational purposes, the teacher’s actions will negatively affect the commercial market gain of the workbook publishers. But, if a teacher wanted to make a set of one time use copies from a single chapter or a few pages from a non-consumable textbook, that would fall under fair use. The purpose is educational, the original work is published, only a small amount of the work will be used, and the single use will not have a negative impact on the publisher’s commercial market.
Academic Dishonesty
Copyright functions in the larger realm of academic honesty. Academic dishonesty is the same as copyright infringement because in both cases someone is claiming other’s work as their own, which gives them an unfair advantage. This could be anything from cheating during a test, to deceiving the grader (copyright infringement), to fabricating work from false efforts. The largest form of academic dishonesty is plagiarism. Plagiarism is claiming someone’s ideas or writings as your own. Often this appears as students or even professionals submitting work either done by someone else, or using other’s words without proper credit, but it can even be restating critical information, without credit, that is not common knowledge.
Types of Copyright
For educators, virtual images may be the most frequently copyrighted material, as many educators create or edit their teachings material, increasing the visual and educational appeal, for the benefit of the students. First thing educators should know about images is everything on the web is not free or permissible to use. Assume you have to get permission from the author. If permission is not an option, use alternative resources instead. Creative commons images are accessible though various sources such as Google’s refined image search, SixRevisions, or Flicker (an online photo sharing website) and others. Just make sure that the image receives the proper credit to the original author. As for fair use, the previously mentioned guidelines can apply, but those are only for non-profit uses. If the education is part of a private business, or any commercial endeavor, fair use no longer applies.
Copyleft and Creative Commons
While copyright contributes to society by protecting creators and their originality, the idea of copyleft contributes by giving works back to the public for modification and distribution. Copyleft, unlike simply non-copyrighted works, ensures that the author’s work will remain free to use and not as someone’s newest commercial product. The organization Creative Commons assists with simple licensing for the sharing, editing, and distribution of works. There are three requirements in the creative commons license. One, attribute the work to the original author, two, only let others use exact duplicates of your altered works, and three, maintain the same sharing license as the original work acquired from creative commons. Overall, despite the limitations, Creative Commons has drastically increased the creative capabilities of the public as more works are given back to the public for revision and distribution, enacting the very idea behind copyleft.
Credit for the information contained above goes to Jongpil Cheon and Steven Crooks from their Digital Literacy ebook. Credit for the background header image goes to Giovanni at https://goo.gl/JwOJBJ.