Copyright Law and How It Affects the Use of Technology in the Classroom

With the rise of technology, access to information has gotten faster and faster.  Back in the days, we had books, newspapers, and magazines, but now, we have information at the tip of our fingers; all it takes is a couple of clicks and we can get our eyes on a wide range of articles, books, all sort of magazines, and any imaginable source of information.

This has been a great advantage for educators, especially since students being hooked with technology, and access to the internet at a very young age, which has made teaching and learning a little easier and faster. But along with this “advantage” has come the so called “copyright” violation of many authors, who have worked hard to write, designed, or put the information together for us to use it.  So, how far can we go using and abusing of their work? First, we need to know what is covered by copyright.

United States Copyright Law protects authors’ original “works of authorship. A work of authorship must be “original” in order to qualify for copyright protection. This means that the author must have engaged in some intellectual endeavor on his/her own and the work must show a minimal amount of creativity. Some examples of what is not protected by copyright law because there is no minimal amount of creativity is: facts; words and short phrases such as names, titles, and slogans; familiar symbols or designs; mere variations of typographic ornamentation, lettering or coloring; mere listing of ingredients or contents.

Ideas alone are not protected, but their forms of expression are covered.

In the other hand, works, for purposes of copyright protection, include the following categories:

•Literary works

•Musical works

•Dramatic works

•Pantomimes and choreography

•Pictorial, graphic and sculptural works

•Motion pictures and other audiovisual works

•Sound recordings

•Architectural works

Example:

A student’s Web page, if original, is automatically covered by copyright. 

Sources:
using-copyrighted-materials-your-classroom
Copyright_for_Teaching.pdf
Educationworld.com