Tracy Myers

Week 1 Reading- Copyright Issues

Part 1-- What is copyright – copyright means if you can create it you have the right to protect it and legally claim it as your own. This was nice explained in the very first video I watched on copyright. What that means to me is simply anything that I create and wish to protect that includes my short stories I need to have copyrighted.  As the owner of the work I will have all rights to use and reuse it unless I give permission to others to use my work.  I also understand that material that are improvisational that are not filmed or recorded can’t be copyright.  From viewing the other videos on copyright I learned that individuals with copyright ownership has that for the lifetime plus 70 years and companies copyright lasts for 100 years which is an extremely long time.

Part 2--What is fair use- fair use is not a right it is a legal defensible position. It involves these three conditions whether something is fair use nature, the amount (which is unassigned percent) and commercial effect.  As an educator one must be very careful when dealing with fair use because although the amount is unassigned it is still a very small percent.  Teachers are still required to follow the same fair use rules as non-educators when it comes to materials. They have to give credit to the owner of the material and how much is use is just as important as well.

Part 3-- What is Creative Commons Solutions- creative commons is a place to find all kinds of material that is free to use as long as you give credit to the owner of the material.  Creative commons solution uses symbols to inform the borrower how they are allowed to use the material and the type of permission they are given for that particular work. 

Paula Sanchez

Week 1 Reading Blog Post

June 29, 2012

The whole notion of copyright and fair use has been clarified through this week's reading (3 sets of videos), but has also further muddied my understanding of what I am able to use as an educator, how much I am able to use, and how concerned I should be about using something created by someone else.  There is a sense of unease that always comes with using photos and film clips and other materials that you did not create.  That sense of unease frequently causes me to underutilize materials in my presentations, both for this course, and in the education of my students.

What I better understand is the definition of copyright, and how I can use copyrighted information.  I understand that in order to use material created by someone else, be it text, video, still images, music, or even dance, permission needs to be obtained.  Fortunately, with fair use, I can "borrow" small portions of materials to use with my students.  (I am still very unclear on what small portions really means.)  I also know that it is critical to credit the original creator whenever possible.  This is the biggest issue for my students - they think that if something is on the Internet, it is available for them to use.  Use often translates into copy, and they really struggle to understand the difference.

Having said this, I do appreciate the last set of videos from this week's assignment.  I appreciate the Creative Commons notion - that in this information rich Internet age we live in, there exist agreed upon guidelines that do carry the weight of the law.

As mentioned in the videos, Creative Commons falls somewhere in between "All rights restricted" and "public domain".  If all information were clearly labeled using these guidelines, it would be less difficult to determine whether or not I am able to use the information, for example, in a lesson for my students.

This coding system will also help me better educate my students as to what information they are able to use for projects, as well as their personal uses.

Still images captured from video:

copyright pt3-2cc videos.m4v

Well after thinking long and hard about this Leadership Project I am unsure of which one I want to do I mean I am a horrible writer (well I think I am) so to publish an article would be a great accomplishment. Then again to speak in public is a very difficult task of mine as well (I tend to talk in circles) so I guess there isn’t really a choice because I will have to choose one of the two. So with that been said I think I would rather Present. The reason I choose to Present is because I feel I can explain what I want people to know a lot better if I write down my presentation before hand. Hopefully this would make presenting a lot easier for myself, also this could give me an opportunity to work on my presentation skills and be more comfortable doing public speaking.

Also I just hope that people won’t think I am talking too much when I do start my presentation. Yes my friends sometimes do tell me I talk to much but I don’t think I do, I just feel I need to make sure everyone completely understands what I am saying when do talk in a group setting. I suppose kind of like I am doing now… I am rambling huh, sorry. 

What is copyright ~ Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time. Generally, it is "the right to copy", but also gives the copyright holder the right to be credited for the work, to determine who may adapt the work to other forms, who may perform the work, who may financially benefit from it, and other related rights. It is an intellectual property form (like the patent, the trademark, and the trade secret) applicable to any expressible form of an idea or information that is substantive and discrete. (Says the Wikipedia) It never really accrued to me, also I didn’t know you can almost copyright anything until I see the video and read the section on copyright issues. People have copyrighted Dances, movies, phrases, looks etc. and this truly has amazed me that so many people would want to copyright the little things, but then again it makes since because you now own the right to whatever you copyright and now if any one uses it they will have to credit you or they can be sued.

What is Creative Commons Solutions ~ Creative Commons helps you share your knowledge, its technical infrastructure that maximizes digital creativity, sharing, and innovation. Its a licensing tool developed by the open access movement to protect copyright while increasing public distribution, offer better solutions to these questions than existing oral history protocols?

The purpose of copyright law is to promote the progress of useful arts and science by protecting the exclusive right of authors and inventors to benefit from their works of authorship. To this end, the US Copyright Act of 1976 -a complete revision of the Copyright Act of 1909- protects all the works of authorship created between 1978 and the present. (Stim, R. West Publishing, 1979) This protection extends to works that are unpublished but are in a fixed and tangible form. The federal government regulates copyright law by registering copyrighted works through the Copyright Office and by enforcing copyright laws in the federal court system. The most commonly litigated issue in copyright law involves copyright infringement. Disputes regarding the violation of any exclusive right granted under copyright law, such as copying a work, are filed in federal courts due to Federal Preemption. Copyright law protects literary, musical, graphic, or other artistic forms in which an author expresses intellectual concepts. In the context of copyright law an author is the creator of any copyrightable creation. Any author creation that meets the standards of copyright law is protectable under copyright law and considered to be a work of authorship. The main two requirements to meet the standards of copyright law are originality and fixation.