Comments for Making History

Comment on Copyright by Elizabeth Baum

Elizabeth Baum — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:37:06 +0000

As a copyright lawyer and Facebook/Flicker/blog addict, I’ve been keeping my eye on this from a few different angles. In some ways it is more relevant than ever given the access we all have to copyrighted work and the ease of copying/distribution. Technically, when I posted Maddy’s iMovie on my FB page, I was infringing her copyright (I think she will let this go!) Whether her iMovie was also infringing as a result of the music/images it contained has to do with whether it falls under the fair use exception. As this example illustrates, in my opinion copyright law as it exists now is completely unequipped to deal with these issues presented by the internet. And this doesn’t even begin to address the jurisdictional issues.

One quick clarification — attribution is completely unrelated to copyright. Attribution speaks more to plagiarism, research standards, ethics, etc. but doesn’t have anything to do with copyright. If anything, if you infringe someone’s copyright with attribution it tends to show it was an intentional infringement because you knew you were copying someone else’s work.

Student/teacher use of third party materials would be a “fair use” of copyrighted works assuming they met the criteria for that safe harbor. I agree with Palfrey’s comment above that the most important of these is “did your use take potential money out of the copyright holder’s pocket?” I’d be happy to brainstorm with you about this more if you are ever interested. Elizabeth

Comment on Trying Glogster by Andrew Connelly

Andrew Connelly — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 22:30:25 +0000

Off to good start – nice glog! Let us at Glogster know if we can help you in any way. – Andrew

Comment on Copyright by Steve Bergen

Steve Bergen — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:43:58 +0000

Hi Heather … I found your writing interesting as well as your verbal contributions to the discussion yesterday … about two year ago at Chapin, we hired a lawyer John Palfrey to help us under the big picture issues regarding attribution

“That means following the copyright laws, but it also means citing our sources. And as teachers, we need to model this.”

If you go to http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/palfrey/ you can read about him and the Berkman Center at Harvard that he runs

But MORE IMPORTANTLY … I have posted his LEGAL ADVICE to us regarding attribution on the Web page of
http://www.summercore.com/wittenbergdoor/JPnotes.html

He made it clear to use that it was OKAY to allow our students to create Powerpoint and Web pages with graphics from other sites … Steve

Comment on Blogs and Wikis and RSS, Oh My! by mjmonty

mjmonty — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:52:24 +0000

I’ve had similar experiences as you describe in creating the capacity for students to engage in discussion via blogs and other asynchronous communication tools. It certainly gives voice to students who are somewhat reticent to participate in the traditional f2f classroom discussion experience.

A couple good examples of socials studies teacher blogs when you have “a spare moment.”

8th grade US history teacher was awarded a grant to tour through the deep south to better understand the civil rights movement, the Civil War, and WWII to a certain degree…he used a blog to document his learning experience:
http://taftinthesouth.blogspot.com/

5th grade world geography teacher using his blog as a place to stimulate conversation amongst his students outside of the classroom:
http://worldinvestigators.blogspot.com/

Cheers!!

Matt