- Do we as a global society need to rethink copyright laws?
Yes, of course we do. I think the system as it is now, where copyright relies on controlling the uncontrollable – copying and communication – requires a dramatic rethink.
One of the main purposes of copyright is to promote the creation of new works by giving authors certain exclusive rights to that work for limited times so that they may profit from them. However, the current standard copyright terms are much too long to be justified by this underlying objective. According to some, it’s killing innovation and hurting the economy.
As long as a work is restricted by copyright, new creators are severely restricted in their ability to use those materials legally — or completely unable to do so. Therefore the costs of making new works can become a barrier for creators. In countries where there is more flexible fair use, there may be more legal room to use these works. But still, it remains a murky, risky, and grossly inefficient system no matter where you reside.
- How do we teach copyright in countries where international copyright law is not followed to begin with?
Screenshot of email I received on December 9th, 2015.
I recently received the above headline in a Breaking News email from the South China Morning Post. According to the article, the Hong Kong government contends that the film, TV and music industries have lost billions to piracy because the copyright law has not been updated since 2006.
Internet users have voiced their complaints and have even vowed to protest if the contentious Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2014 goes ahead, even if they have been assured that freedom of expression and creation would be protected. Ada Leung, who is the Director of Intellectual Property, has gone on record though in stating that the bill is meant to improve the legal protection of copyrighted works while maintaining the public’s freedom of expression and creation when dealing with such works.
Leung also said,
…those who shared links on social media, adapted videos, songs or pictures, streamed video games, created fan fiction and cosplay, would not be guilty of a crime if their acts fell under the six exemptions – parody, satire, pastiche, caricature, quotation and reporting or commenting on current events.
What does all this mean though for the average teacher here in Hong Kong? Well, for one, if lawmakers can’t agree on a Copyright Bill, then how are teachers really supposed to understand and teach the ethics of copyright and fair use in today’s quickly changing digital landscape?
I think this statement by Leung is a clear indication that piracy will continue, however.
(Leung) doubted the new law would cause a deluge of legal cases as a copyright owner would need strong legal grounds and money to pursue a civil case.
With no legitimate threat of a legal recourse, was it going to stop someone from stealing another person’s work? In my mind, education.
- What’s our role as educators in copyright usage in schools?
When it comes to copyright usage, our role as educators is extremely important. In most cases, we are their role models. Young people today have more opportunity than ever before to plagiarise or reproduce digital copies. If we demonstrate to them that it is ok to take things off the internet without citing where we found the material, or whom it belongs to, then we aren’t doing our jobs well enough.
We need to be effective copyright role models and regularly acknowledge the efforts of others. We not only need to explain copyright to our students, but promote the idea that it is ‘cool to be legal’. We should make an effort to show children examples of copyright agreements (eg. software) and provide evidence of good legal practice (e.g. proof-of-purchase, bulk software license agreements). If we are passionate about ‘doing the right thing’, then discussing the issues of pirated CDs, shared software, and copyright court cases with local and global implications will be of interest to them.
If we as educators model and encourage feedback ourselves, we will be helping young people develop similar skills. We should include details about copyright in our own work and state clearly any limitations in the use of your own material we are willing to allow. We need to be better at explaining the legal consequences of their actions. Of our actions.
It’s our duty to teach students to respect the intellectual property of others in this digital “cut and paste” world we live in.
flickr photo by Jonas Tana http://flickr.com/photos/jonastana/5212932514 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) license
One way to do that is to use Creative Commons. Designed by Lawrence Lessig, Creative Commons is a non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. Its’ use enables us to span the gap between full copyright and the public domain. The Creative Commons project provides content creators the opportunity to state ahead of time how their images may (or may not) be used.
The following two videos will shed more light on the beauty of CC:
To better understand Creative Commons,
- It is a way to legally consume, share and remix media.
- It provides an alternative to the usual school practice of ignoring copyright, and thus allows us to prepare our students for live outside the educational bubble.
- It is a potent tool for enabling creativity and innovation, without needing to make everything from Scratch.
- Some useful media for understanding issues related with copyright and its impact on creativity and innovation
- Free Culture – read the book online for free.
- Copyleft: A Teacher’s Guide To Sharing – a short video about copyright.
- Sharing Creative Works – a simple, hands on guide for using CC.
Our Tech Director at ICHK, Ross Parker, is as big an advocate of Creative Commons as anyone I know. How big? I’m pretty sure I would be safe in saying that he has CC pyjamas at home! Ross first introduced CC to me a few years ago in one of our tech meetings. Since then, we have been working on trying to instill this mindset in our teachers, students and community members.
In his blog post Creative Commons: What is it?, Ross states
As an educator, you might wonder why you should care about any of this. The reasons are simple. From a philosophical point of view, education is built on knowledge, which is created through sharing. Ergo, anything that promotes sharing is good for education. From a practical point of view, Creative Commons gives you access to literally a billion creative works, which you and your students can build on, legally, to create incredibly rich learning experiences. And finally, you can use Creative Commons to encourage your students to engage with the world around them by contributing their own creativity. A lot of people do not feel that their creations are worth sharing, but the truth is that you never know how other people might use your work to express themselves. Once you realise the true worth of your work within such an open system, the urge to share and connect is hard to resist.
I love how he shares his thoughts on how students may perceive themselves. Quite often I hear those same sentiments in classrooms. The truth is, we’ll never really know how many people will find our work uplifting or worthy of copying. But if students are to learn and apply CC to their work, they’ll begin to appreciate the full potential of the Internet.