Five Resources for Teaching and Learning About Copyright
I’m taking the week off to do a bunch of fun things with my kids. While I’m away the most popular posts of the year so far will reappear. In no particular order, here are some of my go-to resources for helping students and teachers understand the importance and the key concepts of copyright as […]
Why You’re Seeing More of My Face
You may have noticed that my face is appearing in more of the cover images for my blog posts and in more of the cover images for my videos. There is a reason for that and it’s not that I’ve discovered a new vanity in my mid-40’s. The reason is that in my on-going battle […]
An Unplanned Benefit of Using Your Own Pictures in Blog Posts and Presentations
Last week I went on a bit of a rant about copyright and fair use. If you didn’t read it, the gist of it was “no, you can’t use any picture you find on the Internet and call it Fair Use because it’s school-related.” The best way to avoid accidental copyright infringement is to just […]
Addressing Two Common Copyright Misunderstandings
Long time followers of my blog know that over the years I have fought many many many battles with people who think it’s okay to republish my blog posts in their entirety without permission. I’ve been doing this for so long that at times I feel like I’m preaching to the choir. Then at other […]
Three Lessons to Learn from the $9.2M Copyright Ruling Against Houston ISD
Thanks to an email from Jay Schwermer over the weekend I learned about a federal court’s ruling against Houston ISD for violating the copyright of a small company called DynaStudy that sells study guides. You can read a good summary of the ruling including the $9.2 million in damages awarded to DynaStudy in this Houston […]
An Extensive Guide to Copyright and Fair Use
On Sunday I published a guide to locating media for use in classroom projects. In that guide I provided basic summaries of the concepts of public domain, Creative Commons, and fair use. In the section on fair use I referenced Stanford University Libraries’ Copyright & Fair Use guide. That guide should be bookmarked by anyone […]
Two Good Video Explanations of Fair Use
Less than an hour after I posted this chart of alternatives to Google Image search I had two emails and one Facebook message with questions about fair use. One asked about music, the others asked about exceptions to copyright. But really all three messages were essentially asking the same theme of “what about fair use?” […]
Reminder – Free Common Craft Webinar Today
Today, at 2pm Eastern Time, Lee LeFever from Common Craft is hosting a free webinar about how they make their popular explanatory videos. During the webinar Lee will show how their process from start to finish. Register here to join the free webinar. In other Common Craft news, they released a new video this week. […]
FAQs About Copyright and Blogging
My post on Monday about plagiarism kicked off a wave of comments and questions. To address some of those questions I published this list of resources for teaching and learning about copyright. Then yesterday afternoon I went live on my YouTube channel to address some questions too. That video is embedded below. An unplanned bonus […]
But I Gave You Credit… Lessons About Copyright
The blog post that I published yesterday in which I listed people and organizations who have recently stolen my work has elicited quite a few responses already. A couple of those responses have included, “you were given credit at the end.” That comment shows a baseline misunderstanding of copyright. Copying and pasting entire blog posts […]
Copyright Lessons for Students and Teachers
As many of you know, I spent much of my week dealing with a copyright infringement issue. As a result of that I have been doing more reading about DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) than ever before. One piece that I read was this article from attorney Sarah F. Hawkins. The article didn’t have much […]
Creative Commons Explained In Simple Terms
Whenever I give a presentation or run a workshop about student video projects, I spend time explaining what Creative Commons licensing is and its benefits for consumers and producers of media. Sometimes in my workshops I use Common Craft’s explanation of Creative Commons licenses and what they mean for consumers and producers of media. I’ve […]