Week 10-11 - Copyright Clarity

This week I learned that there is a ton of confusion among educators about the issue of using copyrighted materials. In her book Copyright Clarity, Renee Hobbs says that a lot of teachers misunderstand or choose not to understand the law and their rights, and this has a detrimental effect on classroom education.

I'd studied this stuff aeons ago in film school at Temple University (where author and educator Renee Hobbs founded the Media Education Lab). There I'd heard a lot about media literacy - about the way media messages are deliberately constructed, and how they can be used to shape and influence public opinion and even the outcomes of elections!

It's so important for teachers to be able to communicate this to their students - to teach them that their world is full of messages - on billboards, on TV, on cereal boxes, on the Internet. Everything they read or see is produced by someone with an opinion, a message and particular a bias. It's so important, now more than ever, for students to become media savvy adults so that they can understand these messages. They've got to know, so they won't be swayed by just any product or pitch.

Using sample media can greatly enhance media education and literacy education in general. I recall very clearly a series of lessons in my AP Language class at Bitburg High School, in which my students analyzed advertising for evidence of gender and other biases. I shared some ads that I'd found and my students contributed their own clippings as well. One major conversation piece was this Burger King ad for their "Super Seven Incher". Including this ad in my lesson meant that I had used copyrighted material in the classroom, but it was an excellent way to achieve our purpose - to take a controversial piece of advertising and pull apart its sexual and gender-biased undertones.

Renee Hobbs reminds us that teachers need not fear delivering insubstantial lessons free from copyrighted material. We don't have to be like the teachers she labels "hyper-comply", the ones who, out of fear or misunderstanding of the law, endeavor to keep all copyrighted material out of their classrooms. None of that is necessary.

The copyright laws in our constitution and the acts that amend them actually allow for a great deal of flexibility. They leave room for the user's judgment. Teachers even get a special exemption, that they may not be aware of, when using materials for lessons in a school setting. I learned that many times content creators will set up schemes to muddy the issue. They'll set up and publish guidelines; sometimes these will even end up posted on classroom walls. Hobbs stresses that these are merely guidelines, and are not the same as the law.

Hobbs' book indicates four main considerations when users are deciding to claim fair use for copyrighted materials:

• The purpose or nature of how the copyrighted material will be used
• The nature of the work itself
• The amount of material actually used
• The effect on the market value of the material

As long as the teacher or students use material in a way that is transformational, meaning that its purpose is different from that of its creator, then a user can claim fair use under copyright law. As teachers, or students, before we use something that we didn't create, we have to think to ourselves - am I adding something new to the conversation? The ads, cartoon and articles I used with my AP students were used for analysis and critique. We were adding new knowledge. We used them for a purpose different from their intended purpose, and so we were able to claim fair use.

I think the main premise of Hobbs' book is to make teachers aware that they need not fear what they think is a muddy or complicated piece of law. It's not as scary or as complicated as we might think - and much of the power is in the hands of the user.