FBI ANTI-PIRACY WARNING
When the title Library Media Specialist is mentioned images come to mind of that beginning of year in-service..
a hushed silence fills the room. I mean the media specialist certainly seems serious, the bun is tight and the glasses
are ever so carefully placed on the bride of the nose. There is nervous laughter then...
the awkward silence ensues.
At the conclusion of the meeting, I am left feeling a bit jittery, and start to wonder...will I go to jail if I make a copy, play this movie, or show a clip?
Well let's address the elephant in the room:
Not really. In fact, the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education reports:
"We
don’t know of any lawsuit actually brought by an American media company against an
educator over the use of media in the
educational process. "(1)
Furthermore, Professor James Gibson, from the University of Richmond School of Law posted this in his article "there were fewer than two hundred criminal intellectual property convictions in 2010 (and some of those were trademark cases)" (2)
So we should rest a little right? Actually, yes. In the context of education, we are the Get Out of Jail Free card. I will address a few sailing points but the lesson of the day is to encourage the academic community to INCREASE the use of materials as it promotes media literacy, engages learners, and provides a vast number of resources in a way never thought humanely possible. Just follow these guiding principles and you should do just fine:
Principles
One: Employing Copyrighted Material In
Media Literacy Lessons-it's ok
1 (a digital copy is the same as a hard
copy in terms of fair use)
Two: Employing Copyrighted Material In
Preparing Curriculum Materials-it's ok
Three: Sharing Media Literacy
Curriculum Materials-it's ok
Four: Student Use Of Copyrighted
Materials In Their Own Academic And Creative Work-it's ok
Five: Developing Audiences For Student
Work-it's ok
Feel free to reproduce this work in its entirety. For
excerpts
and quotations, depend upon fair use.
By the way, I copied this from the Code of Best Practices
website J
1 http://www.mediainstitute.org/IPI/2011/052511.php
2 http://mediaeducationlab.com/code-best-practices-fair-use-media-literacy-education
2 http://mediaeducationlab.com/code-best-practices-fair-use-media-literacy-education
