Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Copyright vs. Creative Commons Education

My students ask me every time I do it:
"Are you copying that illegally? Did you ask permission? My Dad recorded the concert. Isn't that against the law?" etc

They're smart. Some of them even ask me about Creative Commons now that I've shown them some of my compositions. The biggest thing we're missing, is a time and a place to educate these students about Copyright, Fair Use, and Creative Commons.
I'm trying to gather information and wrap my head around it all enough to offer a lesson (possibly even an after school workshop) on the differences. With the press about Nine Inch Nail's latest albums (Ghosts I-IV and The Slip), it gives me a teachable moment to warn them about illegal downloading, plagiarism, copyright infringement, etc, BY offering legal alternatives.
So here's where I ask for help. My plan is to use a simple Google Docs presentation, including some NIN music as a hook, with the goal of having the students understand what we can and can not do based on the various licensing options of intellectual property. If anyone's done this already, I'd love some pointers. By Monday, I will have the presentation published, and will welcome anyone to collaborate if they wish.
Is this something that should be done more often with our students? Are we blindly assuming that they understand the law and differences between copyright, creative commons, and fair use?

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