Copyright Awareness

The issue of copyright can be complicated, hard to navigate, and very intimidating.  However, it is a legal issue that needs to be understood and not just ignored.  I feel that many times educators tend to justify any copyright issue by putting it under the heading of “educational use” without thinking about it any further.  However, this is not always true.  One important step is to create awareness.  Copyright is not necessarily included in college education classes, so is may be up to the school library media specialist (SLMS) to teach their co-workers and create awareness.  Furthermore, equipped with knowledge about copyright, teachers then can transfer this information to their students.

It is important to start making students aware of copyright while they are still young.  Once teachers know about copyright, they can start including it in their lessons.  Copyright Alliance Education Foundation (http://www.copyrightfoundation.org/ ) offered many practical tips on incorporating little lessons about copyright in easy to do ways, such as pointing out the piracy notice that plays before every movie.  We cannot expect students to know about copyright if we do not teach them.  It is especially important to clear up misconceptions about this topic now when many students have the mindset that everything on the internet is “free”.  Teaching students about copyright when they are young is a step toward teaching them to value the ethical use of information.