March 2008 — Digital Content
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Do the (Copy)right Thing
Educators' lack of attention to intellectual property law places their schools in legal jeopardy-and sends a terrible message to students.
"HOW MANY do you want to know about?"
Having been prompted for an anecdote that demonstrates the lack of regard school districts have for complying with copyright law, Carol Simpson makes it clear that she has an abundant sample size to choose from. "I collect copyright horror stories," she says.
She collects and stores them in a database for all the K-12 world to view on her website.
A former school librarian and classroom teacher, now an associate professor at the University of North Texas School of Library and Information Sciences, and the author of a series of books on copyright issues, Simpson launches into a best-of review of K-12 copyright transgressions:
"I know of cases that range from multiple photocopying to computer software piracy-installing on many machines when you have a license for only one. I know a district where two pages were copied from a professional book and included in a district curriculum guide. The author found out about it and sued. The district settled out of court for $40,000. I know districts sued by Disney for using homemade copies of cartoon characters. A school district in Texas purchased a single copy of a high-stakes assessment workbook for each grade level, then sent the copies to the district print shop. The print shop duplicated a copy for each student in the district. The copyright owner found out, and sued the district, alleging $7 million in damages."
She says with resignation, "It's a long list."
Simpson is perhaps the most vocal among the too-few voices trying to engage administrators and classroom teachers to learn about, respect, and adhere to copyright law. To the great frustration of Simpson and other librarians, who tend to be the only copyright sticklers in K-12, it's no easy task, because of the many more pressing matters on the plates of school principals. Says Ruth Dukelow, associate director of the Michigan Library Consortium and author of The Library Copyright Guide (AECT, 1992), "Copyright is just not on the administration's radar."
Without a mandate from the district or a push from principals, teachers remain inattentive to and unschooled in copyright law as well, exposing their districts to litigation and modeling unlawful behavior for their students. "A lot of teachers don't have much background at all related to copyright," says Evelyn Wecker Freeman, information media consultant for Oakland Schools in Waterford, MI. "It's not something I learned at school either."
