Copyright is designed to protect creative works of a literary, scientific or artistic nature. Your national copyright act will provide a detailed listing of the works which qualify for copyright protection but usually include the creative or scientific works of authors, musical works, dramatic works, and works of visual art including paintings, drawings and sculpture, as well as photographic and cinematographic works. (Wikieducator, 2012)
In the majority of countries, copyright protection is automatic and there is no formal requirement to register copyright or to include the copyright symbol or copyright notice to ensure the protections provided by copyright. Therefore, the default position is that creative works are copyrighted as “all-rights reserved”, unless stated otherwise. (Wikieducator, 2012)
Many educators (and others) agree that current copyright laws are antiquated and unrealistic for the digital age we live in. In his blog post “Our bad laws make us criminals” Dean Shareski shares his thoughts about copyright laws and how they are robbing our children of valuable learning experiences. Tim Stahmer contributes to the conversation with his post “we’re all criminals” and shares an example of his lawbreaking activities.
Until the laws are changed we need to be mindful about the information and media we use on our own websites and ensure we use and attribute it correctly. Generally, if you use the work of others you must seek permission. Fortunately, there are many people who are happy to share their work and have published their content under open licenses. Open licenses such as: Creative Commons (CC), GPL-GNU and the Public domain provide permission for us to reuse, remix and adapt others work for our own use as long as we abide by the license requirements. There are millions of images and resources published under open licenses that we can use on our own websites, blogs and other media without breaking the law. I encourage you to license your own work under an open license and contribute to the increasing pool of free and open resources. After all, if we source our resources from this pool, isn’t it only fair we give back?
More info about copyright…
- Smartcopying – the official guide to copyright issues for Australian Schools and TAFE
- The educators guide to copyright, fair use and creative commons [The Edublogger, 2012]
What are open educational resources (OER)?
OER are teaching, learning, and research materials in any medium that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others (Coates, 2012).
Educators are some of the strongest CC adopters and proponents, and the majority of OER are under CC licenses (Coates, 2012).
What is creative commons?
(samtron1412, 2012)
- “What do you know about Creative Commons?” This post by Bill Ferriter on his The Tempered Radical blog provides a good overview about Creative Commons and some resources that you could use to teach others about Copyright and Creative Commons
- The Creative Commons website contains lots of useful information and resources. For example: information about the licenses, a simple form to help you choose an appropriate license for your own work, and a search page for finding cc licensed resources.
How do I find open educational resources?
A Google search will provide you with inks to lots of websites that provide Open educational resources - let me Google that for you [LMGTFY]. Below are links to some of the sites I find useful…
- Finding cc licensed resources [Creative Commons]
- Flickr Creative Commons images [Flickr]
- Open education / free for education resources [Smartcopying]
- WikiEducator – all content is available under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License
References
Wikieducator. (2012). Open content licensing 4 educators/scope. Retrieved 18/2/2012 from: http://wikieducator.org/Copyright_for_Educators/Scope
Coates, J. (2012). Learn about CC during open education week. Retrieved 3/3/2012 from Creative Common website: http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/31636
samtron. (2012). Creative Commons license-Creative Commons kiwi [5:33 min video]. Retrieved 01/03/2012 from: http://youtu.be/5Yn1-xEXTk0
