Copyright in schools week 8

 

Copyright is a very common aspect in today’s society, but what does it actually mean?According to Ross and Kinsley (2007) it is the legal protection granted to the creators of a work-piece over a fixed time period. These copyright law occurs whether work has been published or not, both on the internet and on paper. In 1709, it was introduced as a development from common law, this copyright outlines explicit guidelines to follow for the acceptable use of others work. The original law was known as the statue of Anne. (Patterson, 1965).

 

Copyright is a tricky one in schools because it applies to everything. The most common being images that are copyrighted, used in the classroom, whether on displays or powerpoints. Though for a lot of things copyright doesn’t apply to it being used for educational use. This is called the ‘fair use policy’ and was introduced to allow teachers to have access media found online to use within the classroom (Davies, 2012). It is difficult to know especially when using search engines such as google or bing. Though it is not just pictures that are copyrighted, anything that shows skill, judgment or degrees of labour including writings, songs, art and other original things. It is important to check when using something to if it is breaching copyright.

 

It is important to teach children about copyright so they don’t break copyright laws without being aware while using materials for school such as images and quotes from the internet or books. It is also important for them to know because it can help them protect their original work.

There are many websites that schools can find out about copyright and apply for a licence.The Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA): http://www.cla.co.uk/ is just one of them but it has a useful print out available.

 

Patterson, L. R. (1965) The Statute of Anne: Copyright Misconstrued, Harvard Journal on Legislation, 3 (1). Harvard Law School: Harvard

 

Davies, G. (2012) General Guidelines on copyright, in Davies, G. (ed.) Information and Communications Technology for Language Teachers (ICT4LT), Slough: Thames Valley University [Online] accessed 9.03.14 at http://www.ict4lt.org/en/en_copyright.htm.