Copyright

I've been having a few problems with students wanting to use copyrighted material on their wikis, so I thought I'd write about what the problems are and what I've been doing about them. Basically, the students either

a) try to pass writing taken from the internet (e.g. from Wikipedia) off as their own, or
b) try to use copyrighted music or video on the site.

The first problem has not been difficult to solve. The students know it's wrong - they just need some tips on how to avoid it. One student, for example, wanted to post some tips on dealing with stress on the wiki. She'd been sent this in an email from her Dad, who is in Iraq. Fine, I said, but she would need to make it clear what the source was. She found a link on google, and added it to the bottom of the page.

Slightly more difficult is when students find things online that they want to "add" to their own work. What I've found is that, given the chance, the students, when given a topic to write about, will start their ideas search online, and use the texts they find as their starting point. So the most practical piece of advice I've been able to give them is to simply make their own ideas the starting point, and to use other research methods only when necessary. With that as the starting point, it becomes quite simple to teach students to paraphrase.

Problem (b) has been trickier. My students either seem not to really understand the idea of copyright (e.g. a Chris Brown track isn't copyrighted because I downloaded it from a free file sharing site...) or are pretending ignorance.

You might have less of a problem with this than I do - I prefer to pay for music I download and don't really agree with copyright infringement, but one teacher voiced the opposite opinion - "Does it really matter? It's not even a public website". For me, learningn about this sort of copyright infringment is valuable in itself. I wouldn't want to lecture the students on morals or anything like that, but I do think they need to be aware that they're producing materials for a website paid for by a large organization, and such organizations can be seriously harmed by things like copyright - however unaware the students may be of the legal ins and outs of their work.

There are exceptions, though. The interpretations I've read of using copyrighted materials for ediucational purposes seem to hinge on just how educational the use is. So I wouldn't allow my students to soundtrack a piece of work with a copyrighted song simply because they like the way it sounds. However, with the students currently working on radio shows, I've allowed one group to use a copyrighted Korean song to illustrate a dimension of Korean culture. I think this adds something to their presentation which they would be unable to add with only copyright free music.

For other purposes, however, I've introduced the students to a free site they can download royalty-free music from - www.freeplaymusic.com.

What's your approach to copyright in the classroom? Would you be a bit more lenient than me?