I often wonder when I use images and video in my classes whether I’m violating any laws. I try to cite when possible and credit sources of content. Melanie Wrobel’s session on copyright definitely clarified a lot for me. A few points that I found particularly interesting from her tutorial were:
- ideas themselves are not protected, but a unique expression of an idea may be
- not having the copyright symbol does not mean that content isn’t protected by copyright
- email content can be copyrighted (if someone attempts to use what you’ve written elsewhere for their own benefit)
- citation my not be enough to avoid copyright infringement
- there is an attempt at present to change public domain regulations to match US policy, which is when the author dies + 70 years (+50 in Canada at present)
- you can only copy 10% of an audio track (or a ‘work’)
- British Columbia is at the forefront of the movement to Open Educational Resources (OERs)
- uploading work to the internet is a bit tricky, and you need to specify that you own the copyright to it to avoid it being stolen and re-purposed
If you’re unsure, just go and get permission!
Copyright infringement is rampant, let’s be honest. The internet is rife with it. Many do not know anything about it, ignore it, skim policies before they agree, and have no concept of the ramifications. Who polices this? Do people outside of academia get caught?
I am by no means condoning the breaking of copyright laws. I’m just interested in to what extent copyright laws are being upheld every day. I use YouTube for lots of things, music included. There is so much on there that is blatantly breaking laws.
How do we police it in this ‘open’ internet driven world?
This session will definitely inform my academic practice, and I will do all I can to follow these laws. I wonder though about the world on a whole, and how standards can really be maintained.
Wrobel, M. (2017). A Guide to Copyright. Retrieved from Royal Roads University: https://moodle.royalroads.ca/moodle/mod/page/view.php?id=245370
August 21, 2017 at 9:42 pm
Hi Stu, yes it is near-impossible to police all the content on the internet. YouTube is working on it with music. They have some sort of song-recognition software. If you use someone’s famous song in your YouTube video, the song is recognized. The copyright-holding musician then has the ability to monetize your video for their own royalties. This tells me there are people attempting to fix these issues. One item I am fascinated by is the TV/movie streaming box that is hooked up to a regular television. Have you seen those? They are about $100, and you can find almost any movie or TV show in the world and stream unlimited shows for free if you have internet access. They eliminate the need for most cable channels or ever paying for a movie rental. To me, it seems like blatant stealing of video content, but the Canadian government hasn’t outlawed the boxes yet because streaming is not considered theft. Downloading and copying movies on the computer is supposed to be illegal, but I still haven’t met anyone who has ever been caught.
August 22, 2017 at 12:30 pm
Angie,
I haven’t heard of the black box, though piracy of film and TV is so rampant, I can’t see it being reduced any time soon. Netflix certainly has helped to get people paying again, but so much of it is still freely available. I don’t think the film industry is suffering, but it is great to hear that musicians who scrape the barrel to make a living can get some pay back for recorded music. Paying to see bands live is what I try to do to help! I figure it goes more into their pockets then. Re: YouTube I was meaning more that I can find most albums right on there. Quality is a bit suspect at times though.