Copyright Clarity

As I started reading this book, I felt confused when it said many teachers face issues with copyright in the classroom. The author framed it as a very common problem, and that does not resonate with me. So I felt even more confused in class when everyone started agreeing that this comes up for them all the time. I’m sure it’s because I’m still a new teacher, but this is not something I dedicate any time to thinking about. I suppose saying that should make me feel guilty, and it definitely makes me sound negligent, but even in reading this book, I know that I will have a hard time caring about this issue moving forward (at least in regards to using sounds, images, and videos in the classroom). With that said, though, I do think it’s important for teachers to know about copyright laws and here’s why--there are very few things you will actually get in trouble for, which is basically to say, stop worrying!!

Of course, being alert to copyright laws makes us aware of some common sense things (don’t give other teachers the TeachersPayTeachers resources you purchased, and don’t make copies of a book and upload it to your team’s Google Drive for them to print out as a class set of novels).

To me, more relevant contexts to this copyrighting idea are TeachersPayTeachers and idea property related to administration. For teachers who want to create on TPT, appropriate sharing licenses must be purchased. For example, when using a font in a product, you have to have the sharing license and not just the personal use license. The book talked about how some situations, despite requiring something to be purchased, don’t have the right to charge money, but it seems pretty clear that TeachersPayTeachers is not a scenario like that. It’s also difficult not to share products because of collaboration among teams. When I make math plans, I make math plans for the entire grade, so if I’m making use of a resource, I want all the students, even ones who aren’t in my class, to be using that resource as well. And since I made the plans, it doesn’t feel right to ask another teacher to purchase the product. I do feel guilty that another copy of the resource isn’t being purchased (and none of us make the big bucks around here), it just becomes more of a hassle than an intent to infringe upon copyright issues.

I asked my roommate (a 6th grade teacher at my school) if copyright in the classroom affects her, and she brought up the TPT issues. She’s in grad school for administration, so something she mentioned that we didn’t talk about in class is idea property. As teachers, all of the things we create (lesson plans, curriculum guides, resources, tests, data analysis documents) become property of the district. Which means if the district decided that my lesson plans were so good and everyone had to see them, they would be allowed to post those lesson plans as part of a curriculum resource without giving me credit. Now, this scenario would never happen because my lesson plans aren’t so good. Now obviously my lesson plans aren’t copyrighted and I am not losing any money in that scenario, but is it wrong that it irks me just a little bit they could claim it as their own work?

In all, it’s important for teachers to learn about the actual copyright laws so that many can stop worrying about getting in trouble for using certain images and videos in the classroom. I think the suggestion made at the end of the book about moving into an era where copyright laws don’t exist or are drastically altered is something that might need to be considered in our ever changing world.