Week 1: Thing 3: Copy Rights

Copy rights are one of those things that you think, "Well, duh! So long as I don't steal someone's work, I'm in the clear." This perception is probably aided, of not completely caused, by the fact that at any given moment someone in some school is probably in violation of at least one (if not 3 or 4) copy right recommendations. I know that I haven't hesitated in the past to make a copy of a short story with little regard for how many copies I was making or how long these copies were going to be in the hands of students. I even "inherited" copies of consumables from the teacher who used my room the year before I did. But what really interested me about the copy right information was the the recommendations for showing movies in class. I teach Film as Literature so naturally, showing films is a big part of the class. It really hadn't even crossed my mind that showing a movie rented from a video store would be in violation of copy right. Sure, I've seen the notices when you first play the video that say this video is for home use only, blah, blah, blah....but I guess in the name education, I just didn't think that applied to me. Also, all those random videos shown during all those sub days, are in violation. This information does make me a little more aware that I only show necessary movies and necessary parts of necessary movies. To date, I have rented many of the movies I have shown in class. I buy where I can and use my own copies when I can. I'm still not sure if this would be in violation or not. Generally, copy right is a big maze of you can do this but not that; you can to do to this extent but that is way too much....very dense information.