Copyright Podcast

Here is my blog on Copyright, but in podcast form!

Copyright

Why is knowledge about copyright so important? Infringement on someone else’s copyright can have major legal repercussions, with enormous financial fines. So by knowing about copyright, you can help protect yourself. What is copyright? It is a way to protect authors or creators original works. Almost anything can be copyrighted such as literary, musical, dramatic, architectural, choreographic, or motion picture works. (“Copyright and Fair Use in the Classroom, on the Internet, and the World Wide Web”) There are three main items that these things have in common to remember what can be copyrighted they are tangible, original, and creative. Copyright affects are everyday lives more than you may realize such as movies, books, video games, computer software, music (radio, mp3, sheet music, etc.), choreography and architectural designs. This is just a beginning to what is covered everyday by the copyright laws. Once a work is copyrighted, for works published after 1977, it will last the creators whole life plus seventy years.

Even though the list I just mentioned is extensive, there are items that are not covered by the copyright and fair use laws. For example, slogans, names, words, or other short phrases cannot be copyright, but can be covered by trademark laws. A trademark is “A trademark includes any word, name, symbol, or device, or any combination, used, or intended to be used, in commerce to identify and distinguish the goods of one manufacturer or seller from goods manufactured or sold by others, and to indicate the source of the goods. In short, a trademark is a brand name.” (United States Patent and Trademark Office, 2007) Also any forms of government work, works created by a federal government employee as part of their official responsibility, ideas, and facts that are common knowledge are not copyrighted. Any works that were originally created in the United States before 1923 are considered public domain and are not covered by the copyright law. However, any work created in the United States between 1923-1977 are covered by the copyright laws for ninety five years from the date of publication.

If a work is copyrighted the owner has the right to make copies of their work as they see fit. The owner can also sell and distribute the copies in any form. Owners of copyrighted material can create new work based upon the previous copyrighted work. Also performances can be dictated by the owner of the work. So if you are thinking about doing any of this with a copyrighted work, please get permission from the owner first, you could be infringing on their rights.

In addition to copyright, there is fair use. Fair use is a section of the copyright law that says how a copyrighted work may be used and not be infringing on the owner’s copyright rights. Fair use says that a work may be used fairly for “criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Section 107 also sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair.” (Copyright Office, 2006)

Here are four questions to ask yourself if you are following fair use: What is the character of the use? What is the nature of the work to be used? How much of the work will you use? What effect would this use have on the market for the original or fore permissions if the use were widespread? Now imagine the legal balance scale, if it leans to the left you are within fair use and if it leans to the right consider getting permission.

Using the image of the balance scale let’s take a closer look at question number one: what is the character of the use? If you will use the work for education, non-profit organizations, or personal use then the balance scale will lean heavily to the left. If the work is being used for commentaries, criticism, parodies, or news reporting consider the balance scale is perfectly balanced. If the work will be used for commercial use then consider the scale leaning to the right.

Question number two: What is the nature of the work to be used? If the work will be used for fact or published then the scale will lean to the left. If the work will be used for, cooperate, imaginative or unpublished then the scale will lean back to the right.

Question number three: How much of the work will you use? If it is a small amount, such as ten percent, then the scales lean to the left. If you are going to use more than ten percent then the balance scales lean to the right.

Question number four: What effect would this use have on the market for the original or fore permissions if the use were widespread? If all of your answers make the scales go to the left then you are using fair use! If even one question goes to the right, then you may want to reconsider how you are using the copyrighted work or get permission from the owner of the work.

If you have decided you need to get permission, there is a very simple process you can go though to obtain permission. “Contact the publisher of the material you wish to use. Ask for the address or phone number of the publisher's ‘Permissions Department.’ Some publishers will send you a required permission form to fill out. Other publishing houses may ask for your request in a letter.” (How to get Permission to use Copyrighted Material). Beware that sometimes this simple process can become a lengthy process, so make sure you start this process long before a due date is near. While filling out the form or writing the letter make sure to include everything you will use including page numbers, author, book title, and etcetera. Finally, give the copyrighted work credit in your work whether or not you needed their permission to use it.

Another way creators have to protect their work is by using the creative commons license. There are six types of creative commons Attribution (by), Attribution Share Alike (by-sa), Attribution No Derivatives (by-nd), Attribution Non-commercial (by-nc), Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike (by-nc-sa), and Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd). The Attribution, or by license, allows others to tweak, distribute, remix, and build upon the original work even on the commercial level as long as they give credit to the original work. The Attribution Share Alike, or by-sa license, allows others to tweak, distribute, remix, and build upon the original work even on the commercial level as long as they give credit to the original work, but the new work must be licensed in the identical way as the original work. The Attribution No Derivatives, or by-nd license, with this license the original work can be distributed, copied, and transmitted, but may not be changed in any way. The Attribution Non-commercial, or by-nc license, is very similar to the by license, expect work can only be tweaked, distributed, remixed and built upon on at the non-commercial level. Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike, or by-nc-sa license, this license is just like the by-nc-nd license except everything must be done at the non-commercial level. The Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives, or by-nc-nd license or free advertising, work can be downloaded, shared, or redistributed even at the commercial level, this is also the most restrictive of the six licenses. At http://creativecommons.org/about/license/, they provide buttons, for any of the creative commons licenses listed above, that you can place on your web site to protect your own work.

Overall, you should not be afraid to use copyrighted work as long as you follow the guidelines. Copyright laws are there to protect those who have created literary, musical, dramatic, architectural, choreographic, or motion picture works for the rest of us to enjoy and to gain an education. Just remember that copyrighted work should be respected as if it was your own work out there, so do to others as you would have done to yourself.

References

Copyright and fair use in the classroom, on the internet, and the world wide web. University of Maryland. Retrieved September 24, 2009, from http://www.umuc.edu/library/copy.shtml#getpermit.

Copyright Office. (2006). Copyright and fair use. Copyright Office: Author. Retrieved September 24, 2009, from http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html.

How to get permission to use copyrighted material. Messages posted to How To Forum, archived at http://www.ehow.com/how_18035_permission-copyrighted-material.html.

United States Patent and Trademark Office. (2007). Trademark faq. Washington DC. Retrieved September 24, 2009, from http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/tac/tmfaq.htm.

Social bookmarking is a way to manage...

            Social bookmarking is a way to manage, store, and organize internet sites that you find interesting or helpful.  I recently did research on two social bookmarking sites, Diigo and del.icio.us, and there were some similarities and differences.  For instance, both sites let you publicly share your bookmarks, tag sites, and bundle your tags.  Tags are a way to give a one or two word description of a bookmarked web site; tags can then be bundled into one major category.  For example you are doing research on stress, as your topic, and you tag several web sites blood pressure, health, sleep disorders, and exercise then you bundle all of those tags under the heading “stress.”  Then when you go back to write your paper on stress you have all of the sub-categories, or tags, to pick from.  Both sites also let you see who else has bookmarked similar topics, so you can shorten your search by looking though their bookmarks.  Both sites also allow you to share web sites easily with your friends.  Since you access both, Diigo and del.icio.us from the web, you can get to your bookmarks from any computer that has a web browser.

            The item I like most about Diigo is that it highlights parts of web sites that others have made comments about and you can also see conversations people are having about that web site or topic.  Diigo also lets you know when people are online and will let you chat with them, whereas del.icio.us does not.  Diigo will let you create groups of people, and from an educators aspect this would be good for small groups who are doing a research paper together since it allows you to see recently added pages by your friends or other group members. 

            With del.icio.us you can have one page that has all the sites for a topic, so if you would like to give your students a list of resources that would be helpful to them, this would be a great way to do that.  I also like del.icio.us because you can save sites privately, so only you can view those web sites.  You can also subscribe to tags that interest you, so if you are a science teacher, then you can subscribe to weather, mammals, or habitats and del.icio.us will let you know when others have tagged those sites.

            I like the idea of social bookmarking, because it can make doing searches a lot faster and easier.  Also since your favorites are saved on the web and something happens to your home computer, you can at least easily get your bookmarks back.  With Diigo I can also see what others have thought about a site by reading the comments that were put on a page, by just placing my mouse over the highlighted area, and in some cases get more information on the same topic.  Personally, I will have to start using Diigo on a more regular bases, since of the two social bookmarking sites I researched, it is the one I liked the most.  These YouTube videos, on Diigo and del.icio.us, which will show you more about how to use Diigo effectively

Web 2.0

Nicole Gadt

 

            Web 1.0 describes the majority of web site prior to the dot com bubble burst of 2004.  The majority of Web 1.0 web sites just contained information; the reader did not interact with the site at all, other than following other links, but just read the information available to them.  DaleDougherty of O'Reilly Media coined the term Web 2.0 to use for a conference and after that the term has been much debated over how exactly to define Web 2.0.  So far the meaning of Web 2.0 is making the internet more interactive with social web sites like MySpace and Facebook, micro-blogging and blogs (i.e. Twitter, Blogspot), sharing photos and video (i.e. Flickr, YouTube), sites you can leave feedback on about products, sellers, or services (i.e. Amazon, eBay), social book marking sites (i.e. Delicious, Digg) and wikis (i.e. Wikipedia, Wikispaces).   Another major difference between Web 1.0 and 2.0 is in Web 1.0 manufactures were encouraged to create software that could not be changed by the end user.  Web 2.0 has Open Source software which anyone can download, use, and change for their own purpose.

            Personally I like the ideas of Web 2.0.  If you are talking to a friend in person and a topic comes up that you have a picture of on Facebook, then they can have easy access to the picture.  As for educators, I like how there is a wide variety of software that is free for anyone to use, a whole class could easily use the same software for uniformity purposes.  An educator can make bookmarks on a social book marking site and then have the students go to sites for readings or as a resource, since you can tag each web site students can find what they are looking for easily.  Wikis are great for working on small group projects, since anyone in the group can make changes to the wiki so that it will tell the others in the group what have found out or what they want to do.  Students can also keep blogs about what they have read or studied in the classroom, peers can then make comments on others’ blogs.

            I recently started a Digg account to find out more about it.  I learned that you can invite your Facebook friends to view the web sites you have gone to and left comments about.  After you digg, or tag, a web site it will offer you the chance to publish it to your wall on Facebook so all your friends can see it or e-mail it to your friends.  Digg will also let you tweet, or make a micro blog, about the site you have found on Twitter.  For an instructor this technology can be used to quickly share information with students about web sites.  I like the idea that you can put notes with the web sites you recommend and even select a picture icon to represent the site you have chosen.  I would use this in the classroom to show students which link to go to since the site links are easily shared and after class students can find their way back to if they needed more information on a topic discussed in class.

            Flickr is a way to share photos and videos with notes and tags that can be added by the user.  You can also create private groups, which I think would be great for an elementary school setting.  You can also search Flickr by using the tags other people have created such as locations, certain time frames, or by events.  You can tag any photo or video and have it displayed to you groups, this can be a great way to guide students to look at pictures from a location they are going to be studying about and since there is a discussion board on Flickr, a conversation can begin right there and get students first reactions to the picture or video.  By using Flickr in the classroom setting, you can make current or past events come alive with pictures that were taken by people who were there.  Students can also take a look at how others cultures do things or dress.

            I also looked into Pageflakes, which is similar to My Yahoo or iGoogle.  Pageflakes allows you to keep up on several different news sites, weather, and other RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds.  Pageflakes is known as a webtop, since it can be accessed from any computer with a web browser and when you log in, you get the information that is important to you.  Pageflakes also allows users to share web pages, which could be really nice to use in a classroom setting so students can be on the same web page at the same time.  You can also add widgets to your Pageflakes, such as word or quote of the day, blog, Twitter, message boards, and even an interactive calendar.  I think this is a great way to get students to seek out needed information on the internet.  An instructor can even set up pages for groups, so that each group member can modify the Pageflakes.  I would use the interactive calendar in my classroom to post when and what homework is due, upcoming test, and class/school events.

            We have seen how Web 2.0 has changed the world around us, such as just after the Iranian elections of 2009 when the Iranian government shut off cell phone and texting services, people found a way to over come these issues by tweeting about what was going on around them with Twitter.  With Web 2.0 anything is possible!  What will Web 3.0 be like?  I think it will involve people making tags on websites to help search engines filter information from the millions of web pages that are out there.  I think Web 3.0 will be even more interactive than it is now, since more and more households will have a computer with fast internet connections.  I think by the time Web 3.0 gets here, which may take a few years yet, every student will have a computer with internet access at home and be able to find the answers to any of their questions within minutes of doing a search, not like now where it may take a few searches to get what you need to know.  What does the future hold?  Only time will tell.

 

RSS Reader

A RSS Reader can be installed on your computer, such as Active Web Reader, or logged into on the internet from any computer, such as Google. A Really Simple Syndication (RSS) Reader “collect(s) news in the background at user configurable intervals and warn with a little popup in the system tray that there is a new message arrived. You can click the news headline to see a short description of the news and click or open the original news web page in an RssReader browser or default browser window.” (RSS Reader) A web based RSS Reader can be accessed from any computer, I personally choose to use Yahoo, because it will give you a summary of the article right there from the home page. You can modify the home page to keep track of a large selection of web sites that are constantly being updated. I recently chose to install Active Web Reader onto my desktop computer and I found that easy to install, but the web sites didn’t seem to be as actively updated as the Yahoo monitored sites. An advantage of using a web based RSS Reader, you can get to the information from any computer that has internet access, which I find very convenient and much more user friendly. Also Yahoo was very easy to set up and create an account, to set up My Yahoo, you just need to follow the step by step instructions that are online.
I monitored the New York Times, New York Times Personal Tech, and The Onion with My Yahoo RSS Reader. My Yahoo RSS Reader keeps me up to date throughout the day on the latest news, since I can log into it anywhere. On my installed RSS Reader, Active Web Reader, I subscribed to www.extremetech.com which has lots of information on the latest and future technology and The Galactic Apple, which is a resource for teachers. I found the installed RSS Reader to be very distracting, when it was on, it was forever asking me if I wanted it to monitor every web site I went to, so needless to say it was turned off and I only turned it on when I was ready to read or mark a site, but other than that I found the Active Web Reader very user friendly and easy to install.
I think that an online RSS Reader would be good for both students and teachers; this way, current events and other topics can be discussed in the classroom. A teacher can make it an assignment for students to read the headlines of the New York Times and not have to worry about the students getting a physical newspaper, not to mention the online version is free, while the newspaper still costs. Recent research by the Newspaper Association of America Foundation, found that students who read newspapers are “more likely to get involved with volunteer work and fundraising to improve their communities.” (Capital Newspapers)
I also think that students can keep a blog about current books they are reading or a topic studied in class and then have their peers read the blogs. This can be a way to keep students accountable for their own learning. With the online RSS Readers it is simple to see if any of the blogs have been updated since the last time you read them. Students could then ask questions to the person reading the book, and help them to get a deeper understanding of the book, not to mention that students can also improve on their written communication skills.
References
Capital Newspapers. (2009). Newspapers in education. Retrieved September 6, 2009, from http://www.capitalnewspapers.com/readers/nie.php.

RSS Reader. (2003-2007). What is an rss reader, archived at http://www.rssreader.com/rssreader.htm.

RSS Reader Information

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AXv8WFLteekLZGR2bnR2Z2tfMGZidmh0dmd4&hl=en