Scott over at the EdTechPost as dug out a pretty interesting paper on copyright, DRM and other obstacles to the use of digital media in the classroom. This is timely as I noticed on Engadget a story about the CEA saying that the RIAA is actually hurting the industry with all it’s DRM nonsense.
When I’m talking to students, I always tell them that they should do everything they can to create their own content, but we all know that teachers, notorious for using any trick in the book to create resources for their students, will do what they need to do to get a lesson together. If that means “borrowing” material so be it. So in part what I am saying is unrealistic, but it also encourages them to be able to modify the material that they find out there to better fit what they need. One student told me recently that it was a good thing that I showed how GarageBand can be used to create music because it made the ppt presentation much better for her as opposed to when a top 40 song was “borrowed”. GarageBand’s ability to remix tracks that can really to help explain the slide was something that also interested her for other projects that required presentations.
Many students also believe (I don’t know if it’s correct or not) that if they modify something to be an original work (just as they would cite a paper or use a blockquote), that there should be enough change to have it considered original and thus exempt from copyright. To me that makes sense – but likely according to lawyers, only R&B/Hip Hop artists can freely sample at will and still make money off of it.
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