Learning4Content/Workshops/Online schedule/eL4C31/Copyright

Discussion thread: Copyright and my right to let others copy from me

=Resources= Dr. Robert Diotalevi presented on Copyrights Laws for Educators on WiZiQ on October 24, 2009.

Dr. Diotalevi has given copyright permission to add the presentation so others can learn but with due credit given to him for doing the work. Dr. Diotalevi does these presentations on a voluntary basis both face-to-face and online. I wish to thank Dr. Diotalevi publicly for helping educators become aware of fair use and copyrights in and out of the classroom. --Nellie Deutsch 14:16, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Do you really know what is covered by copyright?

 * I did not know much about copyright, I assisted to a class called Copyright law last Saturday on wiziq and I know now that one who creates something original is the owner of the copyright, no matter if he or she does not patent it. one who copies that work and commercializes it could be sued. There is something called fair use that means some copies could be used for educational purposes but legislation is still incipient specially regarding Internet usage . I think we must be very careful with this issue in order to avoid infringements. --Ricardo Valenzuela 16:28, 25 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Copyright for me was just a term used to say that some things should not be copied bacause they belong to someone else. After the chat session of saturday, I realise that it is definitely more than that. There are so many things attached to copyright that one must be very careful about what he/she is taking from the net and what is being done with the contents. But fortunately fair use slightly lessens the weight of copyright. Students are always looking for knowledge and it is a good thing that we as educator know what should be known about copyright not only to protect our students but also the authors. --Nimlaphi 10:11, 26 October 2009 (UTC)


 * The simple answer is not really. As an educators we often do not consider that we are breaking copyright because we are not doing it for commercial gain. This is not strictly true as we make our living from content often acquired from we no longer know were. We are also not good at attribution. This is one of the things I look forward to considering during this course and exploring the concept of content for the good of all who may wish to use it. --Gilesl 08:54, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

--Robeanne 10:02, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
 * This is something that comes up a lot when I am working with students and especially when they are doing research work. I think it is important nowadays to teach children from an early age about copyright and plagiarism.  In the olden days (as my sons like to say!) when we did research for a school topic I would pore over the heavy encyclopaedias on the shelf at home, find the information  that I needed and because it was just too laborious to copy it all out I was forced to learn how to paraphrase, pick out key information and then put it into my project.  Nowadays it is just too easy to cut and paste whole chunks of text from a wealth of exciting looking websites – it is a skill that our children really need to learn early.  They also need to learn how to bookmark and cite their sources – by the time they get to me at Secondary School and even beyond at University it is difficult to teach them t do this as they are so used to copying without citing.  As far as we as teachers and educators go, I think we too have become lazy and caught up in the whole information highway thing and we too need to re-evaluate how we use resources we find on the web.  Some schools/educational establishments claim that anything you “create” whilst in their employ belongs to the employer and so you cannot take it with you, because you created it on their time.  But who is the creator or author?


 * For me, copyright is a term legal term used to describe the rights given the one who has originated or created the work. In short, it means that it protects the work of the original creator and this can be related to any work like a book, a song composed by a singer, a television program and so on. --Soobhadrah Bokhoree 22:10, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Should I copyright my creative work?
What if other people start using these resources as their own? Because all of us who are in this workshop will have to submit a small bit...
 * Hello, I was just asking myself if, when we are going to submit a resource, would we need to copyright it? Afterall, it's our own notes and questions and answers...

This was just an idea which came to my mind...

Hope to have responses soon. --Nimla Philippe 16:08, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
 * --Gladys Gahona C. 02:31, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Hello Gladys, Thank you very much for the information you provided. Is has helped to clear some doubts and questions that I was having... --Nimla Philippe 07:13, 29 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I think we should copyright our creative work so that there is no plagiarism. It is a way of reassuring the creators or owners that no one will steal or copy their work. It acts as a protection for they deserve to be recognised and rewarded for their own talent. They are the only ones to decide afterwards whether they want to prohibit or authorise its reproduction, recordings and so forth. --Soobhadrah Bokhoree 22:19, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Add a new topic here
Hello, I was not there on saturday for this session but I just had a quick listening to the video and I need to come back and listen to it again. I have scanned over the views of some participants. I quite agree on what Roseanne says about in the old days where technically it was not possible to copy a lot from encyclopedia and we had to make a summary using our own words. That was a time when we were doing things slowly. There was no rush but now we are not walking fast but we are running. The cut and paste has taken over and here also it requires skills and datamining techniques to do that from a vast amount of info available. I quite agree that we have to cite authors but if we produce a text with lots of references, it becomes quite difficult to read and sustain ourselves from these writings. We ourselves we tend to forget to cite because we have read so many things and finally we have forged a new perception of something, just like a summary from many many articles and like you said it has become routine work. We certainly don't get knowledge from inspiration. We get them from others but somewhat these have an effect on our cognitive brain, we build on them and we sometimes see things a new way. For certain theories we have to cite people, but don't you think that nowadays we are indulging in doing that... chris Sorry I'm coming back. I was just thinking...Let's be down to earth,Do you think that our young people,who is not bothered about good english from oxford or good french from larousse but practicing fast messaging language, will,in a few years time ' attach great importance to " who said this and that", or would they prefer to live in a " give-and-take society"(I have copywrite on this expression. It came to my mind while thinking about "throw away society of Alvin Toffler")Just joking. Kind regards
 * --Chrisgun 13:42, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you to some extent. It's true that lots and lots of references make it tedious for someone when he/she is reading an article. Definitely not interesting. And also, like you said reading and reading and more reading generates our own perception of things and it stays at the back of our mind. Whenever we need an information, we retrieve it and never stop to ask ourselves where it came from. But then will we be able to retrace this informatioon? It came from so many sources!!!
 * Hello Chris,

However I tend to disagree with you concerning the youngsters. They will definitely not attach a lot of importance to "who said what and when" but is it not our duty as educators to tell them and make it interesting for them to know it? Is it not our duty to make sure that they understand the importance of copyright and know that there is hard work behind every piece of information submitted?

These are questions which maybe as educators we should ask ourselves... Kind Regards.--Nimla Philippe 16:04, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

--Chrisgun 20:04, 28 October 2009 (UTC) Ha! ha! Hello Nimla, glad to hear from you. I was exploring a reaction and you are perfectly right because if we teachers we don't teach them the right attitude, who else will do it? Every year I get problems with my students when they have to do their project works. I keep pounding on them not to copy from other projects and it's a real police work which I do and in the end it pays as they are satisfied when they produce a work of their own, satisfied also with the experience they have derived and I'm sure that they will carry forward the right attitude in their world of work, and society benefits.

I'll share an experience which I want others to comment. Once the principal of a school decided that his teachers should reflect on some issues pertaining to education. So the teachers met regularly for nearly three months, debating, doing research work, compiling notes and so on and so forth. Finally a book was produced. Of course it must have one author and you guess it's the principal. Little mention was made to the teachers...just thanking them. The book was sold to students, parents and whenever it is being referred the author has to be quoted. We have many cases of people who takes information from the research of others, write a book and claim authorship. What do ya think

saludos chris

What you are saying is definitely true. This happens so many times and most of the time it goes unnoticed, usually the people who have done the research and written everything down don't have enough courage to face the one who has stolen the work or they are simply too timid to do so. Unfortunately, there are so many opportunists out there who are waiting for these kind of situations and people... --Nimla Philippe 07:18, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

--Chrisgun 12:23, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Helloooooo. Anyone there with more comments? Helloooooo chris