Why+is+copyright+a+problem?

Copyright for CCPS Educators

 * Why is copyright a problem?**


 * **Technology encourages duplication.** //Who hasn't copied a dvd or downloaded a music file? Technology encourages us to form bad habits and those habits become second nature.//


 * **Sometimes payment to the producer is straightforward; sometimes it is not.** //No one would walk into a bookstore, gather up an armload of books, and then waltz past the cash register, cheerfully announcing, "It's not for me. It's for my students."//

We are used to having to pay for books and so we recognize the need to do so. We understand that our cable bill covers some of the costs of television programming. But, few people think of the indirect costs of television represented by the higher prices for products we are charged because of the cost of air time. Because we pay for television ads indirectly, it's easy to forget that there is a cost involved, especially since we are not privy to the details of the specific broadcast rights that the advertiser has purchased.

It is even more difficult to trace the money trail on the Internet. Someone has to be paying for something, somewhere, but the .com bust of the 1990s proved that even Wall Street could not figure out exactly how much money was being made on the net or how much of it there would be.


 * **Boundaries between legal and illegal uses can be nebulous.** //You can purchase a black line master and print out a class set of materials with it. But you cannot share that same black line master with another teacher or include it in CCPS curriculum materials. Even though you bought the material, you do not own the rights to do anything you want with it. You only purchased the right to use it with your own class. The same is true of music. When you download an i-Tune, you have purchased the right to listen to it yourself. You do not have the right to play it to a large group or embed it in another project.//

Does that mean that you can't use anything? Not exactly. There is such a thing as //Fair Use.//

Previous section: What is copyrighted? Next section: What is Fair Use?