Upon watching the video webcast of Melanie Wrobel’s presentation entitled, “A Guide to Copyright,” I learned a lot of things I just did not think about. Most of the important definitions and basic information on copyright was a real ‘eye-opener’ as they say. There were three that stood out to me right during the first ten minutes of the video cast. Did you know there is a UN ‘Berne Convention’ to which Canada is a signatory, along with most other countries? I sure did not. This convention helps to set out international guidelines and rules to copyright. One of the unique things I learned was the idea of the ‘Law of the Land.’ This term describes the fact that when using material that is copyrighted, when in Canada, one must use Canada’s Copyright Law (Wrobel, 2016, 03:40). It does not matter where the copyrighted material originated. Another unique insight was that “ideas themselves are not protected by copyright – its the unique expression of those ideas that is” (Wrobel, 2016, 04:48). I always had the assumption that it was the idea one could copyright and therefore another could not use said material. However, if expressed in a totally unique way, almost…making it one’s own idea, one can use the said material. Of course there is always nuances to rules and regulations, but this one was truly intriguing to find out. Lastly, I also assumed that a production of one’s ideas without a ‘C’ – copyright symbol meant there was no copyright law associated with said idea. This is false as Wrobel (2016) explains that “if [the idea or thing] bears no protected ‘c’ statement, it doesn’t necessarily mean its not copyright protected” (05:30). This means we cannot assume something is not copyright, in fact, one should seek guidance if it is unknown if they are possibly infringing on copyright laws. All three of these concepts I have learned most definitely apply to me seeking to obtain a Master’s Degree. I need to be able to be confident I am not breaking copyright laws within Canada and most importantly seek further clarification or help from an instructor or copyright expert when clarification is needed. A good lesson for all of us students.
Wrobel, M. (2016, June 13). A Guide to Copyright (video webcast). Retrived from: https://ultra-ca-prod-sms.bbcollab.cloud/media/stream?original_media_url=sms_73e7fdd4f37d43febde43e4472315f20&media_display_name=LRNT502
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