What is your AUP's reading level?

We advise kids never to sign something they've not read or do not understand. But then we demand they do just that.

It's always troubled me that students are expected to know, understand and follow our district's board adopted Internet Acceptable Use Policy despite it being far above most students' (and most probably many parents') reading levels. I checked - Policy 524 comes in at a 12.0 grade reading level according to the readability engine in Word.

 

I've never figured out exactly what to about this situation. Restricting Internet use only those students who could read at 12th grade reading level never seemed an option.

So I was pleased to see that one of our middle school library media specialists, Cindy Pischner, created a simplified version of the district AUP for kids and parents to sign.

OK, Word still says it is at a 12.0 reading level, but at least it's one page instead of eight pages long and looks more accessible. It hits the important parts of the official policy and includes a link back to it.

How does your school deal with students expected to sign an agreement that they may well not understand?

Copyright counseling

A day or so ago, I responded to an LM_Net posting on copyright, suggesting that we as library media specialists re-brand ourselves as "copyright counselors" rather than "copyright cops." And wouldn't you know it, I get a chance to model what this might look like. From yesterday's inbox:

... For the past few years I have been creating a video for the students. It is kind of a video yearbook with clips from the various sports as well as plays, band and choir performances, homecoming parade, etc. I set these clips to music. This is quite a project for me as I actually go to all of the activities and film them. I then edit and produce the movie myself. It is kind of my gift to the students. This video is shown 2 times, once at an all-school assembly and then at graduation. Acquiring permission to use music in this production has added a degree of difficulty for me. Most of the time the publishers are pretty easy to deal with, but often the record companies, especially the large ones, can be difficult. For example, EMI wanted to charge me $1000 to use one of their recordings. Other smaller labels have been very accommodating.

My husband thinks I am nuts for working so hard to get this permission. He even said a lawyer friend of his told him that I shouldn't be so concerned. Sometimes when I contact an artist or publisher, they will tell me not to worry about contacting the recording company as they are often too busy to even consider my little request. I know this to be the case as sometimes I simply never hear back either way. Some of the items in the myths about fair use that you posted lead me to believe that it might not be that big a deal. If I were to get a cease and desist letter, would it really matter since the two performances would be over? I have to say that when I started doing this, it was just the assembly so I didn't even bother to get permission. But then my principal added it to graduation, so that is a public performance. The principal also added one additional nuance to the whole thing: we give copies of the DVD to the seniors as gifts. This year I am putting a warning on the jewel case liner that says duplicating or posting of this video is unlawful. I don't want it to show up on YouTube. But it is over 15 minutes long which might be kind of long for YouTube anyway.

... here are my questions:

• Do I really need to be so anal about seeking permission for all the music I use?
• Is it permissible to ask for permission with the stipulation that if I don't hear back, I will assume that it is OK.
• What kind of trouble am I likely to encounter if I were caught without permission?
• What do you think about the ethics of the situation? I have told my husband that as the media specialist I have felt compelled to seek permission, but when some of the companies I have talked to tell me simply not to worry about it, I wonder how vital it is for my little production. (I should also say that we are a small school of about 500 students. Graduating classes are usually around 100.)

This was my response, trying to espouse my theories that we need to help empower our staff and students - that we should be their advocates, not publishers... but still be legal and ethical.

First - I am not a lawyer. I am not a lawyer. I am not a lawyer.

As “Ten Common Misunderstandings about Fair Use" from the Temple University Media Education Lab says, "Applying fair use reasoning is about reaching a level of comfort, not memorizing a specific set of rules.” My personal "level of comfort" would permit me to use music in the way you have described without writing for permission. Here's why:

1. The use of the work is "transformative." You are using it for a purpose other than for which it was originally intended. You can describe your project as either "Personal reportage or diaries" or as a documentary.
2. Your use is non-commercial. I assume you are not charging students for the DVDs or admission to graduation ceremonies.
3. You are not effecting the potential market for the work. In fact, people might hear a song they like and buy a legitimate copy, in which the market impact would be positive.
   

One thing that I would consider doing would be to not use entire songs, but create a "medley" and only use music from the current year. This would strengthen the "documentary" aspect of the work as well as adding to the transformative nature of your use.

In Carol Simpson's database of reported cases of copyright lawsuits and cease and desist letters, I could not find an incident that is similar.

I myself would do what you are doing without any ethical concerns, but this needs to be a personal decision based on your own interpretation of fair use.

All the best,

Doug

Now having done this, I have to say that I don't really want to be the "copyright counselor" for the world. While it is lovely having one's opinion asked, I hope to move on to other subjects in this blog. Thanks!

Oh, another example of "hyper-compliance" to copyright restrictions and an interesting take on its ramifications on a school's public image on Scott McLeod's blog Dangerously Irrelevant. What makes this post doubly interesting is that Scott is an educational administration professor. I am wondering how his colleagues teaching school law would respond to his observations?

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Don't forget that tonight we will be discussing copyright on ALA's Main Stage in Second Life, starting at 6PM SLT. SLURL for the event is <http://slurl.com/secondlife/ALA%20Island/127/106/29> For more information visit the AASL blog. Hope to see your avatars there!

Image of Freud from <www.brynmawr.edu> 

Changing how we teach copyright Pt 4 and last

Last Saturday I started writing a "a rational, ethical and legally-defensible way" of how educators should change their approach to both using and teaching about intellectual property, especially copyrighted work. I got side-tracked with some paradoxes. I continue in this post with final of 4 posts about how we might go about doing this...

 
4. Teach copyright from the point of view of the producer, as well as the consumer:

Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right, here I am,
Stuck in the middle with you. Stealers Wheel lyric

Few of us are comfortable at either extreme of copyright enforcement – playing the copyright Nazi or completely ignoring situations of questionable copyrighted materials use. Complicating the issue is that each of us is likely to arrive at his/her own personal level of fair use comfort, judgment of seriousness of misuse, and perspective of the morality of intellectual property use both personally and professionally.

And that's OK.  My long-standing philosophy is that education is all about teaching people to think rather than to believe. We also need to help individual students arrive at personal comfort levels when using protective creative works as well.

I would advance some practical ideas about the role of educators, especially library media specialists, in teaching and enforcing copyright compliance and other issues of intellectual property use:

1. Enforcement of all laws and policies, including copyright,  falls on administrators, not teachers or librarians. Quite honestly, if a building principal chooses not to learn about copyright, about how materials are being used in his building, or not to enforce district policies, it is not a teacher or LMS’s job to make him. Administrators are the ones getting paid the big bucks. Let them earn'm.
2. I will rat out my fellow teachers only under a very narrow set of circumstances. I suppose there might be a copyright infringement so egregious that I would bring it to my boss’s attention. It would need to be something that has a real chance of generating a lawsuit, though. I would put it writing, send it only once, and keep a CYA copy. I would be prepared to show a real example of another district suffering as a result of similar action. (Carol Simpson keeps a database of such things.
3. I need not commit any acts I deem illegal. If a teacher asks me to make a copy of something and I feel it does not fit under fair use guidelines, I will politely say no and explain why. And then teach him/her how to do it.
4. In inservices and communications, I will teach what can, not what can’t be done with IP. I will stress “fair use,” give open source options to software, and alert my staff to royalty free and public domain sources. Let’s change our identity from enforcer to enabler!  If someone asks me specifically whether a use is legal or illegal, I will respond: “It depends on your personal philosophy. If you can justify that the use meets fair use guidelines, is transformational, and sets a good example for your students, go for it! If you can't, don't"
   
5. Any signs about fair use will be accompanied by a caveat. (such as the popular ones produced by Hall David):

In an LM_Net post, library media specialist Vicki Reutter wrote:

Young people eat up this “us against them” mentality and hardly realize it is only hurting their own. Now, I'm mostly thinking of budding artists and musicians, not the goofy Spielburg wanna -be's on You Tube. The economics are changing for selling music, no question. And it's not a bad thing. Who needs a big record contract? But, there is no discussion of ethics of “taking without paying” or “taking, changing and profiting.”

We can certainly get a student to bubble in the “right” answer on a test about copyright, we can refuse to accept student work that may include copyrighted media, and can say, “think hard about your actions, young man.” We should certainly deal with plagiarism. But I doubt any of those actions will stop the illegal downloading of materials once the child is out of sight.

Studies do suggest that teens are not a-moral, but uniformed.  From a KRC study conducted for Microsoft:

Awareness of the law impacts teen attitudes towards illegal downloading.  The more teenagers know about laws against illegal downloading, the more they will come to think it should be a punishable offense.  Likewise, teenagers unaware of the rules are more tolerant of illegal activities. Among teenagers who said they were familiar with the laws, more than eight in ten (82%) said illegal downloaders should be punished.  In contrast, slightly more than half (57%) of those unfamiliar with the laws said violators should be punished.

Yes, we have an role in teaching laws related to the use of intellectual property. But it doesn’t stop there.

Only when students begin think about copyright and other intellectual property guidelines from the point of view of the producer as well as the consumer, can they form mature attitudes and act in responsible ways when questions about these issues arise. And as an increasing number of students become “content creators” themselves, this should be an easier concept to help them grasp:

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has found that 64% of online teens ages 12-17 have participated in one or more among a wide range of content-creating activities on the internet, up from 57% of online teens in a similar survey at the end of 2004. (Teen Content Creators, 2007)

Students need to know what their rights as creators and IP owners are.  

Among the most serious misperceptions about copyright holders is that only big, faceless companies are impacted by  theft. A popular view that it acceptable to steal from big companies but not from the small fry. Too often students and adults forget that many large companies are made up of small stockholders and employees just trying to make a buck too. Publishing companies represent the interests of individual artists, writers and musicians.  Whose ranks they themselves may one day join.

Daniel Pink in A Whole New Mind lists empathy as one of the most important “conceptual age” skills needed by tomorrow’s workers. Developing empathy toward content creators who hope to profit by their work helps all of us place copyright into context and perspective.

This is why we need to allow use the use of copyrighted material in student work, but expect students to be able to articulate why they believe it constitutes legal use.

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Thanks for your patience and comments over this past week as I tried to “think outloud,” exploring new ways to approach how we teach and enforce copyright in schools. This is a controversial, values-laden topic and still one I believe is full of contradictions, paradoxes and valid, if contradictory, view points.  And my own thinking is on-going and has been shaped by the comments left by Blue Skunk readers. Thank you.

I guess what I am saying is that if you don’t like what you’ve read here, check back tomorrow. I may have changed my mind!