I’ve had the opportunity to travel, live, and work in many places around the world. In doing so, I’ve seen many different interpretations of copyright. In some places, Korea in particular, the idea of copyright doesn’t exist. If it exists, you can copy it. The goes for movies, books, software, products, brands. I think I saw a Shrek branded hair salon once that was definitely not official. As you can imagine, it is difficult to keep students from plagiarizing when the idea of intellectual copyright doesn’t exist. Actually, it’s hard enough to keep them from plagiarizing when it does. It takes significant education on what plagiarism is, why it’s wrong, and how to credit ideas.
I think that with the technologies available today, that there really should be some loosening up of copyright law, or even a reimagining. I like that music streaming pay services, like Apple Music and Spotify, are becoming more popular as they represent an adaption to the digital era. I think it is important to have these discussions with students and see how they feel around the issue in the first place.
I think that because of my thoughts and experiences with copyright, I haven’t really had enough discussion about it with my classes. We talk about it with regards to copying work and citing sources in essays but that is about it. I’m also not as strict as I should be when it comes to citing sources in class work, or small assignments. I tend to deal more with it if there is a problem, It could be a good social justice lesson asking if violating copyright is justifiable in other countries or at home and then debating the results and connecting the discussion to personal copyright of students work and online posts.
With regards to my digital footprint, I was lucky enough to receive my undergrad from UBC and we had a few lectures on this. It was enough to ensure that my social media is always something I would be fine with anyone seeing. I know that nothing is private and I do try to impress this upon students. I also make the choice to not allow students on my social media, unless it is being used specifically for school. I like distance from work and personal life. I think it could be interesting to take a look at copyright and how it pertains to social media. What about the lawsuits Pinterest has faced over their link sharing? What about the sharing of misatribited quotes? There is a lot you could do here and it might provide a fun way to reaaly delve into the ideas around copyright.