Copyright Laws

The law that surprised me the most was the Sony Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. I cannot believe that the government decided to extend copyright terms to life of author plus 70 years. I understand the author wants to protect what they created, but I think it is ridiculous to extend to that amount of time. If a person is in good health and lives to be 100, and you add 70 years to that, then that particular item will be protected under the copyright act for 170 YEARS!!!!! That is a VERY long time, more than it should be in my opinion. I think there could be more lenient laws about copyright as long as people explicitly give credit to the original author.

Almost every teacher has violated the copyright laws whether intentional or not. Most of the time, they do not realize that they are committing a crime because they do not have knowledge of the copyright laws.
The band teachers that I have had throughout my schooling have violated this law because they make copies of music so there is enough for everyone to be able to play. A specific incident is when I was in 7th and 8th grade, my band had an abnormal large amount of flutes. The director did not have enough parts for students to even share three to a stand, so he made copies in order to prevent overcrowding to a single stand.
Another example is when professors post chapters of books online(through blackboard), so students do not have to buy the entire book. It is economical for the student, but it violates the copyright law.

I think it is the responsibility of a JOURNALISM teacher to definitely teach copyright laws. Those students should be required to have this knowledge. However, I am uncertain if an ordinary teacher should teach her students to respect copyright laws. I think that if teachers pay attention to copyright, then students will follow their example. However, if the students do not know the copyright law, then they will not that the teacher is obeying and will not learn by example. I do not think that it is the responsibility of every teacher. Perhaps, the social studies/history teachers should some how incorporate copyright law into their lessons.

Teachers should try their hardest to pay attention to copyright law, but many will want to pretend they do not know it in order to get materials for their class.

Hopefully, I will model copyright ethics when I am a teacher. I will try not to copy articles and other items without asking for permission. In all honesty, I will probably violate the copyright laws in way or another because I will have forgotten the specifics of the laws. Even though I have learned about these laws, these laws are subjective and open to interpretation. What is minimum creativity? It is a matter of opinion. If I will be distributing material to my entire class, I will try to get permission so I do not break the law.