In education, intellectual property pertains to the ideas and lessons that a teacher has created. When you dedicate hours of your time after school thinking of creative ways to engage your students, then post assignments online for them, do you want other teachers to use your hard work freely?
The debate about Intellectual property seems to be popping up more and more due to technology making it easier to infringe upon other teachers work. Sharing, copying, and editing can be done and sent across the world within seconds. Before technology, teachers made hard copies of their work and may choose to give their colleague a copy but it probably didn't go much further than that. Now when you share work with someone via a computer, they can send it to anyone or everyone they know. When you post on a class website, all their parents have access to your work as well. On my school class website, the whole world has access to my ideas. Personally, I am willing to share, but not everyone feels that way
In New Zealand, Starkey, Corbett, Bondy, and Davidson (2010) found that 51% of teacher participants had not even heard of intellectual property. And some didn't know that it applies to work that hasn't been published. Here's a link to a National Education Association (NEA) article that explains intellectual property and fair use (for teachers to use articles and images in their classroom.) Check out KD Reeves' blog about teachers' intellectual property rights.
Do you have any copy right infringement stories? Please share them here.
This is an excellent overview of the world of copyright law. Avoiding copyright infringement can be complex. Knowing how to copyright one's own work is an important part of this story.
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