Five Copyright Myths

Today's session was much more enlightening than I'd planned- three hours of student press law wasn't something I was looking forward to. However, I learned a lot and laughed more than once.

I can't remember a lawyer being this entertaining since Boston Legal was on the air.

Providing students with a basic understanding of the tenets of the laws they are interacting with in journalism courses seems essential- I appreciated becoming familiar with 1969 Tinker, 1988 Haselwood, Dean v. Utica 2006, and Morse 2007 (my students will particularly become fond of the latter no doubt).

Reminders like pulling the district publications policy or reaching out to the resources at splc.org or creativecommons.org was useful, as was the discussion on the five copyright myths. Two quotes in particular stuck with me: "Consent is the mother's milk of the law" and "Copyright protects method of presentation, not the underlying information."

While copyright issues are frankly the least of my concerns on campus, this was a great session.

Cody Roberts
Milby High School
Houston