Know Copyright Rules

As teachers, we should make sure that we know copyright rules and teach our students to follow them.

I can’t tell you how many meetings I’ve attended to discuss upcoming presentations and I’m the only one who mentions that we need to make sure we are not using copyrighted images. People look at me with a blank face and insist that because we are educators, copyright doesn’t matter. This is so wrong on so many levels. I have to tell them that I won’t be part of the committee or sign off on the final presentation if they are using copyrighted material without permission.

Recently an online friend, Richard Byrne, talks about this in his blog post, Addressing Two Common Copyright Misunderstandings. He shares two situations where he has to help people deal with copyright issues.

From his post, I learned of a free webinar that he did with Dr. Beth Holland called Copyright for Teachers. I hope you take the time to watch this because it is informative. In fact, I think this should be shown on professional development days or at faculty meetings.

The pictures that I use in my blog and presentations are usually from Unsplash that offers free high-resolution pictures or I will use a photo I took myself. There are other sites that offer free pictures also. At the bottom of my post and on the corner of my slides, I always post the attribution details of the picture even though the site says I don’t have to do this. I think I would like it if someone gave me credit for a picture I uploaded even if I offer it for free. It’s just a nice thing to do.

When I link to other sites on my Friday posts sharing useful information, I usually make sure I put quotes around a description of the site that I took from their page. I don’t want anyone to think I’m saying the words are my own.

Sometimes I will link to Richard Byrnes site, Free Technology for Teachers,  about something because I couldn’t word it better and you should just go to his site because it is so good!

How do you teach your students and colleagues about copyright? Please share. 

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash