Understanding Digital Media: Copyright, Fair Use, and Creative Attribution (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: This presentation is designed to teach you about using digital media in a fair way so as to not violate copyright laws. Digital media refers to things like videos, images, and articles that you find online. Have you ever had a project and you felt like everything has already been done? Are there any new ideas left to create? In today's digital society, many people face these tough questions. With the use of the internet, there are so many things available at our fingertips, it can be overwhelming. In school, we are always hearing words like plagiarism, copyright, fair use, and attribution. On the news, we hear stories about people stealing other people's work. But what does it all mean? We need to remember some advice from great minds like Aristotle, who explained that people create new ideas from old ideas. Creativity involves bringing old ideas together in new ways, while learning is the sharing of new ideas. So if learning and creativity both require sharing and mixing of new ideas, then we need ways to do this. We need to understand how we are allowed to use other people's work and what we can do to make it our own. One thing we can do is transform, which means to repurpose copyrighted materials or change and add value to them to make it our own. Another thing we can do is attribution, which means to cite your sources, giving credit to the original owner. This can be done in the form of bibliographies, reference, or works cited pages. One thing we don't want to do is plagiarize, which means taking someone's work and passing it off as your own. If you don't give attribution, you could be accused of taking credit for someone else's ideas. Don't just copy and paste in research papers. So what is copyright then? It's an owner's right to protect their work developed from their creativity. Some people believe it's a way for owners to make money, but its primary purpose, as written by the Founding Fathers, is to help promote the spread and knowledge of new ideas, because these are the things that move society forward. There is a difference between plagiarism and copyright infringement. Plagiarism deals with morals in school, like if a student hands in a paper that they copied from someone else. Copyright infringement is a legal issue that is handled by the courts, for example, if a singer believes another singer copied their song lyrics or riffs. So how can we use things we find on the Internet if there are copyright laws? There is something called fair use. Fair use allows people to legally use copyrighted work without asking for permission or paying for it. It creates a balance of everyone's rights. Fair use is described in the Copyright Law of 1976. It recognizes that users have rights, and it is flexible. The diamond outlines the four points of fair use. Inside is who can use the work, outside is how they can use it. So what does this mean for you? When creating projects, use a small amount, meaning use small pieces of work, or if you do use the whole thing, it should make up just a small part of your whole project. An example is DJ Earworm. He makes musical mashups. On his site, he encourages people to buy the whole song from the artists themselves. Add new meaning. Transform the work to make it your own. An example is the film trailer Scary Mary, which changes the known kids' Disney movie into a horror film. Again, he only uses small amounts and adds things to give you the chills. Check out the link. Rework and use things in a different way. In this example, a judge ruled that the second photo was not different enough from the first, so it was a copyright violation. The decision was overruled, saying that the second photo is different from the first because it was reworked to add new meaning. Value of the work. This one asks, if you use the work, are you taking money away from the original owner? Our example shows that if a teacher buys the book to copy for their own students, then that is fair because they bought it. But if they copy it for other teachers to use, then that takes money away from the author because those teachers won't buy the book. People can try to stop you from using work. But if you use it for your own students, because those teachers won't buy the book. People can try to stop you from using work. Cease and desist letters can be sent to scare people. It does not mean you will be sued. Sites like YouTube have to take down something if there's a copyright complaint. It doesn't mean that the video wasn't fair use, though. The bottom line is, fair use makes you think. When creating projects with digital media, make sure you use good judgment, give credit, and make something new. Take some time to ask yourself. Is mine different from why it was created? Did I add new meaning? Did I add value? How much of it did I use and why did I use it? And did I cite my sources? If you answered yes, it's fair use. I asked myself these same questions. So here's my list of all the sources I used for this presentation. I hope you learned something new about digital media, copyright, and fair use.