Curriculum

Learning Goals

Creative Rights Overview: In this unit, students will understand the nuance of digital copyright and intellectual property law. Learning activities include applying Fair Use principles to existing material (visual, audio, written, other); deciding how to copyright personal content; role-playing the various perspectives in the current digital dilemma; exploring the historical/philosophical background of copyright; and connecting decisions made in copyright context to civic action. Forms of instruction and expression for students include text, images, audio and video.

While the digital copyright debate has largely been black and white between freedom of use/sharing and heavy-handed protection measures, young people deserve a more nuanced, balanced understanding of the interests involved. Because it would be unfair to position teachers as the only 'experts' in this rapidly shifting and grey topic area, peer to peer learning and student-driven decision making are the main methods of instruction.

Understanding Goals:

1. Historical & Philosophical context of Intellectual Property/Copyright Law

• Students will understand the context within which US copyright law was created.
• Students will understand what some of the reasons are for governmental adoption of copyright laws.
• Students will understand what it means to hold a copyright.

2. Digital Era Dilemma

• Students will understand the difference between digital and analog media.
• Students will understand the benefits and complications of digital distribution.
• Students will understand how copyright law has changed over time.

3. What You Can Do

• Students will understand what you can do with someone else's copyrighted works.
• Students will understand how to apply these frameworks.
• Students will understand how this legal discussion connects to their lives and actions.

4. Civic Engagement

• Students will understand that their work in the classroom relates to their personal lives.
• Students will understand the choices for citizen activists and the pathways to effective civic action.
• Students will understand steps for active engagement in the civic and government spheres.

5. Student Agency & Creativity

• Students will understand that there are multiple pathways for expression.
• Students will understand that goal setting and reflection are important parts of creative process.
• Students will understand that through their own creativity they are affecting the future of their democracy.

National Teaching Standards

(National Educational Technology Standards - NET•S)

This curricula crosscuts much of the National Educational Technology Standards. In particular our design is based heavily on Creativity and Innovation, Communication and Collaboration standars but also draws heavily from

MA State Curriculum Frameworks

(From Grades 6-8 Technology Curriculum)

• 1.24. Create a multimedia presentation using various media as appropriate (e.g., audio, video, animations, etc.).

• 2.2. Explain issues related to the responsible use of technology (e.g., privacy, security).

• 2.3. Explain laws restricting the use of copyrighted materials.

• 2.3. Explain fair use guidelines for using copyrighted materials (e.g., images, music, video, text) in school projects.

• 2.4. Identify examples of plagiarism, and discuss the possible consequences of plagiarizing the work of others.

• 2.8. Analyze and explain how media and technology can be used to distort, exaggerate, and misrepresent information.

• 3.7. Plan, design, and develop a multimedia product to present research findings and creative ideas effectively, citing sources.

Methods

Defining Creating Work

• Teacher tells class about how art in US law is considered a ‘creative work’.
• Teacher outlines the different types of work classified as ‘creative’ and goes over the criteria.
• Teacher then guides class through the making of a creative work. This creative work can be solo or collaborative in anture. It can take 15 minutes or 5 days. The creative work can take any form (poetry, essay, picture, photo, film, video, sculpture, music, advertisement, other)

Copyright and Creative Rights

• Teacher introduces the term “copyright”.
• Teacher explains how copyright protects creative works.
• Teacher explains the limits and exceptions of copyright.
• Students imagine how they’d feel if they gave up exclusive control of their creative work after 14 years (length of time copyright initially covered) and then has the class imagine how they’d feel after 30 years; and then finally class considers 75 years—the current length of copyright protection.
• Class explores Interactive Timeline
• Students can discuss as a class their predictions for how copyright might change in the next 5,10,20 years.
• Students can write a letter to their Congress person describing how they would like to see copyright law change (or pretend to go back in time and write about a specific piece of legislation in the time line).

Public Domain

• Teacher explains the concept of "cultural commons" and “public domain” as reasons why it is good that copyright protection has limits.
• Teacher explains the limits and exceptions to public domain.
• Students find creative works in the public domain that relate to the creative work the students have made.
• Teacher encourages students to find ways to incorporate their findings into their creative work.

Transforming Media

• Teacher asks class what they should do if they find copyrighted work that they want to use in their creative work.

Teacher explains that students have two choices: they can ask for permission from the copyright holder or they can attempt fair use.

• Teacher explains the term “fair use”.
• Teacher explains that one of the most important principles of fair use is transformation.
• Teacher has students find copyrighted work that relate to their creative work.
• Teacher challenges students to “transform” the copyrighted work into their creative work.
• Class then votes on how well each student/group has transformed the copyrighted material.
• Teacher explains that Fair Use is actually more complicated than transformation . . . and introduces the 8 questions that you must ask yourself to pass the Fair Use test.
• Students then apply the fair use test to other students work.
• Teacher asks students what they think about Fair Use---Is it Easy or Hard? Fair or Unfair?

Creative Commons

• Teacher says that if students want to share their work with others—and avoid other people having to navigate fair use questions, they can consider creating an alternative license, called creative commons.
• Teacher shows Creative Commons videos. Teacher explains the different licensing choices, and has students go to the creative commons website to make an imaginary license.
• Teacher has students consider their creative work: will they use the public domain image they found; will they use the copyrighted image they found; will they choose to license their work under creative commons or will they choose to keep the default copyright license.
• To complete the learning activity, students create a description of their creative work; they discuss the public domain and copyrighted work that they considered; and they explain what license they choose and why.