CSE 619:
Reclaiming Fair Use: How to Put Balance Back in Copyright by Patricia Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi is a great book that explains what Fair Use is and how it works. I found it interesting that the book goes through all of the steps on how to create a code for the best practices in fair use. It goes from talking about the people that are going to be a part of the group to what is going to be done by the group. When it was describing who would be in this group it reminded me of when I would be put in groups and each of us would have a role within the group.
I remember that there was a
recorder, speaker, reader, a leader, and an illustrator. Now reading through
the book I can see that this type of set up is not just used in the classroom. With
every group you need to make sure that everyone will work well together and all
of the different roles are the right ones to use. It talks about how, “The
industry executives or brokers who license the copyrighted material a community
uses are never good friends for this purpose…” (Jaszi, 2011) .
This shows that people need to be careful when trying to create their own code
for fair use.
The next
step in creating a fair use code is to collect research on why there may be
problems with using copyrighted material that the community that is your group
has. The book suggests that using surveys, interviews or both are good ways in
collecting the information that you are looking for. Using these methods, the
fair use group, are able to see what problems accrue in the specified field
that is being looked at. With the survey and interview information the fair use
group can narrow down the issue that is being had and the best way to go about
moving forward in the mission.
An example is if I am writing a
lesson and come to a road block because I want to try something more creative
than what I have been doing, I would look online to see if I find anything that
looks like it would be more fun to do. If I were to have found a lesson that
looked like it would be a great substitute for what I originally had I would
fill out my survey explaining that I found a lesson I want to use but I do not
want to use all of what the lesson gave. I would be wondering if I would need
to cite where I found the lesson or if I tweak it enough that I would be able
to call it my own.
The information that the survey and
interviews collect would be looked through and have not just the things people
are asking about but also the obstacles that the person is going to have to go
through in order to get what they are asking. Recommendations on how to proceed
will also be included so the questioner will not be left hanging. All of this information
will be the most helpful for the people in the same field as the questioners.
Works Cited
Jaszi, P. A. (2011). Reclaiming Fair Use: How to
Put Balance Back in Copyright. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
Chicago 60637.
Hi Diana, I was also interested in the detailed descriptions of the process of developing best practices within your cultural community. One thing I found interesting was I wondered if a specific cultural community develops best practices, what if I legal challenge does not agree with what they have developed? Will the fact that the community created the standard, make it legal? What if there are significant differences between best practices from one community to the next?
ReplyDeleteDiana,
ReplyDeleteYour post interested me as well! I think that it is always an interesting decision whether or not to cite somebody else’s work or not. I see it from a couple of different perspectives. First, if I find a lesson online, most likely it has been put online for others to use. Does that mean that I don’t need to cite it since the author has intended for it to be reused? Or would they want some credit given to them even though they probably would never hear of it? I know that if one of my lessons was found online I would not care if another teacher used it without citation. Personally, I think a lot of the time it just comes down to what we ourselves are most comfortable with. I often cite things that I adapt just at the end of my PowerPoint or lesson. This just means that I don’t have to worry about it in the long run.
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ReplyDeleteDiana,
ReplyDeleteThe section of the book you referred to about creating a code for best practices was a good one. You make a good point about the different jobs that people in such a group might have. It's a nice example of skills that students learn in school having a practical application in real life. I had to wonder when I read the section if I would ever feel like contributing to such a group. Maybe down the line when I have a better feel for fair use.
Since there are no black white rules about fair use I guess everyone will have a slightly different take on how to cite things like lesson plans. I might cite my source if I were to copy a lesson plan word for word and planned on using it in my online course. Normally I have to significantly transform a lesson I find so is usually takes care of itself. In the future I plan on using the guidelines I learned in Reclaiming Fair Use: How to Put Balance Back in Copyright to help make my decisions about how to use material I find.
Nice job on your post, you brought up some good points.