Melanie Wrobe’s video on copyright was extremely eye opening. I know that there is a whole industry stemming from protecting individuals and their work, and I have also read about various copyright cases in the news about music and intellectual property. I was just unaware at how technical, detailed, and intricate it is. Wrobe discuses the difference between plagiarism and copyrighting, and the distinct ways to differentiate between the two terms. She stressed that even if you give credit to someone’s work, how and what you use it for determines whether or not you maybe violating copyright laws. This is definitely something that I need to be mindful of and an area to grow my knowledge in especially within my professional and academic life.

I was interested to learn that Royal Roads University has established a community of practice and outlined a Fair Dealing Policy that provides details and procedures for its students to follow. The purpose is to prevent any potential litigation that could arise. Even if the intention is good and the use of the content may seem harmless, there could be potential academic and personal repercussions if the content author decides to pursue things further in a legal manner. As Wrobel points out, there are different types of software out there that can help track the use of the author’s work (i.e. Google Alerts) and that can increase the likelihood of being caught.

The copyright video webcast has increased my awareness and understanding of copyright. I hope that there are other opportunities to have further discussions with my cohort to gain a better understanding to the variety of circumstances that we could face in the future, especially when it comes to the research and thesis part of the program. As a visual learner, it would be helpful to see more examples of best practices and examples of individuals may have violated copyright standards.

Wrobel, M. (2016, June 13). A Guide to Copyright (video webcast). Retrieved from: https://ultra-ca-prodsms.bbcollab.cloud/media/streamoriginal_media_url=sms_73e7fdd4f37d43febde43e4472315f20&media_display_name=LRNT502