"Copy" and "Pasting" the Future of Copyright

At the start of this course we had to choose an area related to digital citizenship that we wanted to focus our attention on. One area that I decided to primarily focus on is the issue of plagiarism, since this is something that I encounter quite often in my day to day world as a high English school teacher. After completing the readings and watching the videos this week, I have realized that there is so much that happens in the world of copyright laws that I knew nothing about. I also realized that we, as educators, do not accurately instruct our students about how these laws could affect them, not only in their educational lives, but also in their personal and professional lives.

It has become so easy for information to just be “copied” and “pasted” now that we live in a digitized world. My students have grown up unaware that this practice is actually considered stealing, because it is part of their culture. I have consistently taught my English students about plagiarism while we are working on essay assignments and research papers and we have discussed the fact that it is illegal to take the words of another and use them as your own. My students seem to be aware of this, but I think most of them only believe that this rule applies to their “school life”. I have rarely discussed stealing images from the internet that students, and let's be honest, almost everyone may use when making any sort of a visual presentation. I always have to have the discussion about stealing copyrighted music or video clips with my video production classes, because many of the videos that they make end up running on our YouTube channel. After completing the research this week, I have now realized that there is a bit more that I need to make sure that my students are aware of.

In education we have come to rely on the laws of fair use, but I think that we still need to model and discuss with each other and our students the importance of giving credit to others where credit is due. It will help our students to seriously take into account how and where they get their information as well as how they are sharing that information with others. I hope by educating my students more on how important it is to cite their resources that they will understand that this digital world of collaboration is there to help them grow in their own learning journey as well as for them to develop an appreciation in the realm of digital ethics.

I am left wondering if this constant using and taking of other’s digital resources is going to change the way that copyright laws are currently used or written. Will the use of other’s work just be considered the new “norm” and allowable to some extent or will the laws that are currently in place take hold and how will anyone be able to keep up with the amount of information available? How are we, as educators, going to navigate this ever changing digital world in order to truly prepare our students to live in it?

References:

Bailey, J. (2013, October 7). The difference between copyright infringement and plagiarism. Plagiarism Today. https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2013/10/07/difference-copyright-infringement-plagiarism/

CrashCourse. (2015, April 23). Introduction to intellectual property: Crash course IP 1 [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQOJgEA5e1k

CrashCourse. (2015, April 30). Copyright basics: Crash course intellectual property 2 [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tamoj84j64I