Copyright Law and Technology (Article Review)

In their article, "Copyright Law and Technology,"(1) authors Elizabeth Langran, Robert Langran, and Glen Bull discuss the particular role that 21st century information technology--found in most modern schools--plays in the evolving nature of copyright law, ethics, and policy.


They set up the discussion--of how the use of new information-age technologies mutually affects the evolution of copyright law--by noting how the IT revolution has made it easier than ever for children to access and manipulate digital content. This allows students today unprecedented ability to author rich media handiworks, not just observe them as in times past. Their example is of a student using tools such as Google, Photoshop, and iMovie to composite a modified image, movie, and commercial music track MP3, thus creating a derivative work from copyrighted materials.

Beginning with Thomas Jefferson's early influence, Langran, Langran, and Bull discuss how the copyright protection of creative ideas and the ingenuity it encourages are often pitted against society's reasonable interest in using those ideas, especially after a certain amount of time. They then briefly describe how the vested concerns of corporate media producers competed with the interests of consumers in the so-called Betamax case,(2) wherein movie studios attempted to curtail the use and sale of videotape recorders for fear of widespread copyright infringement. The authors mentioned the 5-4 split decision of the U.S. Supreme Court to illustrate how federal copyright laws and their judicial interpretations are evolving and often tenuous. I believe their comment regarding the "justifiable perplexity about the shifting order" would resonate with many educators.

In the second section of the article, the authors attempt to dispel some of this confusion by elaborating on the concept of fair use of copyrighted materials in the educational context. Federal law allows the use of such material (without having to obtain permission) for "purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, ..., scholarship, or research," subject to certain conditions(3). Four particular criteria are to be considered (which I remember via the acronym "P.A.N.E."). These are:

1. The Purpose of the use of the copyrighted work;
2. The Amount (percentage) of the work used;
3. The Nature of the work (e.g., is it more creative or more factual?); and
4. The Effect on the market (i.e. profits).

In the third section, the authors introduce the Creative Commons, a sort of middle ground between the free-for-all of copyright infringement we often see today, and the extremely rigid opposite alternative that corporate media producers may advocate. Here an attempt is made to secure liberal permission to use participating authors' copyrighted materials in educational contexts, while simultaneously securing reasonable protection of their rights to license, control and profit from those materials in the broader context.

The article discusses, in the final sections, works in the public domain and the importance of obtaining permission from copyright holders and giving them proper attribution. In their summary, the authors emphasize that legal and corporate control of copyrighted materials is tightening at the same time that copying content has become unprecedentedly easier. Therefore it is all the more important for educators to have a good grasp of copyright concepts, and to convey them to their students.

One of my first thoughts in the introduction was, given the exponential increase in technological tools available to (and already being used by) today's students, I had better keep up with technological innovation in order to better establish a rapport with today's students (among other reasons).

The authors also drew my attention to the changing nature of copyright law. Thus when I am trying to determine where the boundaries might be to copyright restrictions in a particular situation, I must consider:

• the latest modifications to copyright law in Title 17 made by the U.S. Congress;
• the developing interpretation given to those laws by the courts;
• the fact that even the current jurisprudence might be contested by minority opinions and thus could evolve quickly with a shift in the composition of judicial panels;
• not only the potential sanctions I might face for infringement, but the responsibility to provide both an ethical example and contextual teaching to students in view of the challenges they will face in navigating these boundaries themselves in the future.

 Finally, I realize now the demands on educators for "copyright carefulness" in these increasingly controlling, litigious times. At the same time, it is becoming more important to provide today's tech-savvy children with rich media learning experiences. Therefore it behooves me to gain facility in both discerning fair use boundaries and in utilizing the abundant resources available for the fair use of copyrighted material, such as those at sites like the Global Grid for Learning, the Creative Commons, Flickr, etc.

The principles discussed in this article relate to several of the subcategories in the ISTE NETS and Performance Indicators for Students (NET•S). Items 1.a and 1.b tie in by way of the authors intriguing introductory scenario of a student creating a derivative work (iMovie) from existing knowledge (Google image, MP3 song). If such a student were going to "communicate...ideas...using a variety of media and formats" (Item 2.b), then certainly he/she would need to "locate, organize,...,synthesize, and ethically use information from a variety of sources and media" (Item 3.b). However the main theme of this article is all about how educators should teach students to "advocate and practice...legal...and responsible use of information and technology...for digital citizenship" (Items 5.a and 5.b).

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Citations:

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(1) Langran, E., Langran, R., & Bull, G. (2005). Copyright law and technology Learning & Leading with Technology, 32(7), 24-26.

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(2) Universal City Studios v. Sony Corp., 464 U.S. 417 (1984).
See "Stanford Copyright & Fair Use - Summaries of Fair Use Cases."

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(3) Section 107 of the 1976 Copyright Act (in Title 17 of the U.S. Code).
See "U.S. Copyright Office - Fair Use."

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