Journal+Articles

Copyrights and Copying Wrongs

So I knew that copy rights were quite a big deal and that many things do have copyrights on them, I just never knew how much stuff is actually copyrighted. Now that I’ve read the article and thought about it, it makes sense, I just never really realized it before. The articles stated, “Nearly every original, tangible expression is copyrighted immediately upon creation.” They also went on to say that there aren’t even very many works that are not copyrighted. Therefore, nearly everything that you copy is probably copyrighted.

“People routinely get away with illegal copying in the classroom for the same reason that people get away with speeding on the interstate,” said John Adsit, online education coordinator for Jefferson County Schools in Colorado. There just aren’t enough people out looking for people who are disregarding these copyright laws.

Are there even many people who get caught violating copyright laws? How would you actually be caught violating these laws anyways? They did have a case where they talked about someone being in the class and watching a movie when a student’s dad was the one who was the producer of the video. This has to be one of those rare occasions. What kinds of punishment are there for copyright violations? I know that a few years ago there was such a big uproar about downloading illegal music, and big fines for that, but I haven’t heard much about that lately.

One of the last things they said was to follow the rule of thumb—“When in doubt, assume a work is copyrighted and ask permission to use it.” “If you properly quote and/or credit a work’s author, you cannot be accused of plagiarism, but you may still be accused of copyright infringement.” This makes sense to me, but now I just worry as I am writing papers or working on projects to really and stop and think about what I am doing and if it’s legal or not.