Teenagers, in the process of forming their identities, usually express their thoughts in personal diaries (O’Sullivan, 2012, p. 193). Within the digital world that diary has become the social blog. In their enthusiasm to share images of themselves and their favourite things in these blogs as they create their profiles (Dowdall, 2009, p. 43), teenagers need to be aware of the serious consequences of copyright infringements of Intellectual Property Rights. Another way, that I was only vaguely aware of, exists whereby students can use images, legally. This is through Creative Commons which is a set of copyright licensing tools created in 2001 by Lawrence Lessig, Hal Abelson and Eric Eldred from Harvard University with help from the Centre for the Public Domain (Forsythe & Kemp, 2009, p. 368). As teacher librarians, especially in the digital age, we need to be aware of copyright law, how it pertains to every item in the library, be it print text, music, images or students’ own creations, the reasons why it was created and the background behind the creation of the Creative Commons licence along with suggestions for use within the classroom.
Copyright
Traditional copyright law was created in order ‘to protect literary, artistic, musical and computer-generated works for a limited period of time’ (Vaidhyanathan, 2001, p. 20). However the 1976 revision of it that was intended to encourage creativity, has had the opposite effect. As Kapitze (2009) asserts, this copyright law is outdated and stifles the collective creativity of young people when collaborating online during social networking where ideas are shared instantly while blogging (p. 99). As Gordon-Murnane (2010) adds, (http://www.thepublicdomain.org/) , when quoting Boyle, ‘most of the culture of the 20th and 21st century is now ‘lost culture’ (2010, para. 8) due to these stringent copyright laws. The new act not only retrospectively placed all material produced since 1923 into copyright, whether the author could or could not be traced, it also meant any work now produced would automatically be subject to copyright whether the author requested it or not (Vaidhyanathan, 2001, p. 20). Thus Creative Commons was created as a copyright licence that was positioned between the strict ‘all rights reserved’ official copyright and the ‘no rights reserved’ freedom to copy anything in the public domain (Gordon-Murnane, 2010, para. 1).
Copyright and the digital age
Creative Commons licensing tools were also created in response to the ease with which material could be downloaded in the same quality as the original, online. When copyright was originally enacted, hyper-linking, forwarding in an email, sharing a blog or twitter conversation, did not occur (Vaidhyanathan, 2001, p. 152) as material had to be physically copied. Now it is the ‘expression’, ‘words’ and ‘tune’ within a song, that is protected, but not the actual concept or idea (Vaidhyanathan, 2001, p. 25). Similarly ‘information’ as in ‘data’, is not protected, only the original authorship (Vaidhyanathan, 2001, p. 25). Thus it is incumbent on teacher librarians to ensure students are aware of these restrictions and the potential libel (Kapitze, 2009, p. 96).
Access and censorship
These restrictions, as detailed in the 2006 revision to the copyright act, are that the owner has ‘six exclusive rights:
1) to reproduce the work;
2) to prepare derivative works, compilations, and collective works;
3) to distribute copies;
4) to perform the work in public;
5) to display the work in public; and
6) to digitally transmit sound recordings’ (Forsythe, 2009, p. 347).
These rights belong solely to the copyright owner. As all work created, from the moment it is produced, is now subject to copyright, in order to access it, the onus is on the person who wants to copy, to find the author or use the piece illegally (Forsythe, 2009, p. 347).
The implications for students in classrooms undertaking research, is daunting. They cannot legally use any image or text unless they have sourced authorship. However, the process is facilitated by the Creative Commons licensing system whereby authors indicate under which category they will allow their work to be copied, be it attributed to say, Joe Blogg, for non-commercial purposes and share alike (BY-NC-SA) or attribution only (BY). These are listed in the table.
Licence |
Abbreviation |
Licence buttons |
Attribution |
BY |
  |
Attribution-Share Alike |
BY-SA |
  |
Attribution-No Derivative Works |
BY-ND |
  |
Attribution-Noncommercial |
BY-NC |
  |
Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike |
BY-NC-SA |
  |
Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works |
BY-NC-ND |
  |
Students can thus use work produced by another person but must be aware of ‘fair use’ restrictions.
Fair use
‘Fair use’ of copyrighted material was codified into the Copyright Act in 1976 for the specific purposes of research, teaching in classrooms, news reporting and critiques (Vaidhyanathan, 2001, p. 27). For example, parodying of political figures for entertainment value was considered ‘fair use’. The courts also take a lenient view of private taping of television shows and broadcasts if these are solely for non-commercial use as would be the case in classrooms. Notwithstanding this, given the Net Generation’s enthusiasm for remixing YouTube videos and parodying well known figures, the Courts may now be much stricter about copyright hence the need to use Creative Commons in the classroom.
Remixing, copyright and production
One specific problem with the United States’ copyright system is the difficulty of obtaining a license to legally use materials. When a composer uses a few bars of another piece of music in his own original composition, it is termed remixing. He would need to ascertain if it was copyrighted, locate the owner and request their permission to use it. As Kapitze (2009) notes, ‘remix and mashup text’ have blurred the idea of ‘a single original author’ (p. 96). Moreover, when Creative Commons licenses are used, due to the nature of the license, work produced is irrevocable. As Gordon-Murnane (2010) asserts, once a person’s work has been licensed and circulated under a Creative Commons licence, they cannot stop anyone from using it however they can stop any further distribution by anyone who uses their product (para. 14) by changing the type of attribution. Another issue is that Creative Commons licenses are non-commercial. These both have implications for the school library regarding sponsorship, negative marketing and unintended usage of materials (Sauers, 2012).
Conclusion
As portrayed in the slide show by Jane Park (2011), while Creative Commons licenses allow the general public to have access to products that would normally be restricted by copyright, it also means that the producers or authors are allowing people to freely use their work such as the video by Mark Woolley on ‘Creative Commons in our Schools’ (2008). Teacher librarians however must ensure that students and teachers are aware of the strict copyright laws pertaining to all material used, with seminars or lessons that specifically detail each step in the acknowledgement of copyright for every image, note, video or word. If using Creative Commons, they must adhere to the attribution for each image such as non-commercial, share alike and non-derivative which means no further distribution. As the Creative Commons site itself directs, when using another author’s material, the student should: credit the creator; provide the title of the work; provide the URL where the work is hosted by another site; and indicate the type of licence used along with a link to that specific licence.
References
Creative Commons. http://creativecommons.org.au/learn-more/fact-sheets/attribution
Park, J. (2011). Creative Commons and OER. General overview of Creative Commons licenses and Open Educational Resources (OER). Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/janeatcc/creative-commons-and-oer
Dowdall, C. (2009). Chapter 3: Masters and critics : Children as producers of online digital texts. In Carrington, V. and Robinson, M., Digital literacies: social learning and classroom practices, Los Angeles: SAGE, pp.43-61. Retrieved October 10, 2012 from https://cmd.library.qut.edu.au/CLN647/CLN647_BK_355689.pdf
Forsythe, L. M. & Kemp, D. J. (2009). Creative commons: for the common good? University of La Verne Law Review, 30(2), 346-369. Retrieved from http://heinonline.org.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/jjuvl30&collection=journals&page=346
Gordon-Murnane, L. (2010). Creative Commons: Copyright tools for the 21st century. Online, 34(1), 18-21. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/docview/
James Boyle @ the public domain: http://twitter.com/thepublicdomain
Kapitzke, C. (2009). Rethinking copyrights for the library through creative commons licensing. Library Trends, 58(1), 95-108. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/220452338?accountid=13380
O’Sullivan, K. (2012). Chapter 12 : Books and Blogs : Promoting Reading Achievement in Digital Contexts. In Manuel, J. and Brindley, S., Teenagers and reading : literary heritages, cultural contexts and contemporary reading practices, Kent Town, SA: Wakefield Press/ AATE, pp.191-209. Retrieved October 12, 2012 from https://cmd.library.qut.edu.au/CLN647/CLN647_BK_355327.pdf
Sauers, M. (2009). The Travelin’ Librarian. Technology Innovation Librarian, Nebraska Library Commission. Retrieved October 20, 2012 from http://travelinlibrarian.info/
Vaidhyanathan, S. (2001). Copyrights and copywrongs: The rise of intellectual property and how it threatens creativity. New York: New York University Press. Retrieved from http://site.ebrary.com/lib/qut/docDetail.action?docID=10032481