I do not claim to be a lawyer. I do however know enough about copyright law to know that it is a difficult subject to know anything about, and there are not many attorneys who do either. It is a very specialized area.Today we had the privilege of listening to Mike Hiestand, (at left) former staff attorney for the Student Press Law Center give us newspaper and yearbook advisers tips to help keep us out of trouble.
(check out this copyright knowledge quiz at the SPLC site)
I am grateful that he came, but I wish that we had more than the short time slot we had today. Too much material, not enough time.
One of the key points he made was explaining how students can and cannot be censored while working at newspapers for schools, and two major cases that went to the Supreme Court and set the precedents.
Basically students do not have free speech for newspapers that are published as part of a class/curriculum setting. The school can limit them. However, if a student creates a paper on their own then the school no longer has any say. Censorship is defined as government controlled speech. If a student creates a newspaper on their own, or in a club (though this area is less clearly defined) then they have the right to share it on campus, as long as it does not interfere with the school's activities.
One other item he pointed out is that copyright applies to things on the internet just as much as they do in the printed world. If you did not create the material, you need to get permission to use it. Just giving attribution to the source is not enough.
(Think about it this way - a photographer takes a great photo, nobody pays her for it, but a lot of people giver he photo credits and attribute the photo as being hers... how many attributions and by-lines does it take to make a car payment?).
The whole purpose of copyright (which is part of our U.S. Constitution) is to encourage people to be creative and have some benefits/ownership of their creations as incentive to create more.
Copyright law is constantly evolving, and it takes an expert to navigate through it all.
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Jeff Jones
Miyamura High School
Gallup, NM
Posts
First Jeff, awesome image! Your work amazes and dazzles me.
ReplyDeleteSecond, press law is too big to understand in one sitting, but what I took away from this session was a reminder of things I knew and had perhaps been sliding on and a far clearer understanding of the Hazelwood decision. Until today, I had not understood the implications of that case. It made me very grateful that through some stroke of luck I had put in a "public forum clause" into my editorial policy when I re-started the newspaper at my high school. I feel that offers my students some First Amendment insulation.
Without even skipping to the bottom, I could already tell that this was your post, Jeff. The photo is an excellent choice.
ReplyDeleteBy making it black and white (or is it grayscale), it supports your topic even more. I get a no-nonsense, good old-fashioned law feel from your treatment. This is an excellent example of a photo that complements a post as opposed to just being there to be there.
Beyond the eye-catching image, I also wanted to add how grateful I was for the presentation on journalism law and share with any other readers one point I learned that would have saved one of my yearbook staffers a lot of agony last year.
That piece of information is that things like slogans, jingles, and book and movie titles are not entitled to copyright protection. I don't know how many times I made my yearbook staffer write to Universal Studios for permission to use a movie title in our yearbook -- all with no response.
I hope my post can save at least one other advisor from torturing one other poor journalism staffer.
Kye Haina
Kamehameha Schools Maui
Pukalani, Hawai'i
Jeff, that is a great picture. Very indicative of the work SPLC does. They scare lesser mortals. None of us should hesitate to call them with any questions or legal advice.
ReplyDeleteThis was one of the sessions that I most looked forward to.
ReplyDeleteI have been fighting with my principal over prior restraint for four years and I teach in California!. Luckily, I'm getting a new principal :)
I had a lot of questions about fair use, so I asked this question to better understand it. I'll share it with you, so hopefully you'll better understand, too.
If my students write a story about fashion trends can they pull a picture of Paris Hilton off the Internet to illustrate it?
No!!!
When in doubt about copyright just say "No" was Hiestand's reply.
Becky Gemmell
Escondido High School
Escondido, Calif.