Copyright and Fair Use

Using another person’s intellectual property is something that has been talked about for years.  The balance between keeping the rights of people that come up with the ideas and allowing people to teach and talk about those ideas has always held a delicate balance.  How can we make sure that people get credit, and other considerations, for their ideas and work and still teach and talk about those ideas.  This has come under so much more scrutiny with the advances in the digital age.

The digital age has made everything much more accessible. This has allowed people much more use of things like pictures, music, and articles.  During my father’s masters program at Sam Houston State University in the 1960s, he would have to go to the library to get scholarly articles whereas now, I just have to search the UNT Library database to find relevant articles.  Information is so much more accessible.  With this increase in accessibility comes the desire to use things such as music and movies in education and other places.  Many of the people producing these things do so with a profit in mind.  They are creating these things for their livelihood, so when they are used without permission, they lose money.

Education needs some access to these materials for their use without having to pay the sometimes high fees for such products.  But we do have to balance this with not abusing this use so that the products are used for free in ways that do not directly benefit education.  That is why there are rules in place that guide an educators use of materials so they can use them in class but not use so much of them, that they are abused.  In my school district, the librarians at each school teach the students and the teachers about fair use and how to follow the guidelines so that no one's rights are being violated.  This allows educators to learn how to use these products and not break any copyright laws.  This is important because educators need to model responsible use to their students.  There are too many educators out there that just create and use tools that do not take into account any fair use guidelines and use large portions of protected creations for their advantage.  This is a horrible example to set for your students.

Fair Use guidelines are important rules set in place to guard people intellectual property.  In the digital age, it is more important now than ever to make sure to educate everyone to make sure they know and follow the rules.