Snow storm... and copyrights

First snow storm in 2008 hits Alamance County!

Well, that wasn't exactly the way the news headlines explained what we got yesterday, but that's what it felt like.

As the students boarded the buses and climbed into their cars on Friday, we encouraged them to do the Snow Dance because we were hoping for snowfall over the weekend. Most of the kids could not remember anything more than a dusting in their brief lifetimes. The last time we had a real good snowfall of 14 inches or more was back in the 90's... early 90's.

It fell quietly as the day came to a close Saturday. Surprisingly, it was cold enough to stay all through Sunday... and roads were icy enough to cause many churches to cancel their services. Including mine.

As soon as I woke up, I threw on some shoes, a long-sleeved shirt, and my snow vest (the blue one I'm wearing in the sidebar that I bought when my sister was here), and out the door I trod with my Canon in my hand. Here are two to view:

                                     

 

                                    

 

I had taken video footage of the snow with my camera, which is really what I wanted to show you here, but I haven't finished making the movie yet. I'm looking for the right music.

Speaking of music....

I've been rethinking the music portion of my videos. Should I add music or not? I want to, but there are the copyright laws.... I'm a teacher... I can't ignore them. Actually, no one should ignore them. Theyare laws to protect the copyright owner as well as the individual who wants to make fair use of copyrighted material. I thought I knew these laws well enough... at least in regard to making copies of printed materials to use in the classroom.

But do I know them well enough to be making movies and adding music? No... as I'm finding out... not really.

Every year teachers are reminded about the copyright laws regarding music, video, tv, movies, and books. We're always making copies of things to show in our classrooms. Fair Use laws allow us to do this for classroom purposes, within reason.

I usually get permission from authors before I make a copy of their text. Most will gladly give it and remind me that it isn't necessary because my intent falls within the fair use laws.

Once I tried to get permission to use a video portion from Dances With Wolves that would help me demonstrate a necessary reading skill and concept, visualization. I had received permission from the publisher of the book to copy an excerpt from the book, the same scene that was in the movie I wanted to show. The movie scene followed the book scene closely and I thought it would make a great example of visualization. My plan was to have the kids read the excerpted text, about three pages worth, then have them visualize the scene, and draw it on paper. Then we would talk about what they saw as they read the author's words. Finally, I would show them the video clip from the movie. We'd talk about how the director visualized the same scene, how it was like what they had imagined, how it was different from what they had imagined. What words in the text helped them to visualize the scene?  etc.

It was taking too long to find out if I could get permission, so I proceeded with my lesson while I waited for the response. Weeks later, I still had not heard from the film people, but the book publisher assured me that, since my intent was to use it in the classroom in the manner I had described to him, he thought it was permissable.

The lesson went well, the kids loved it, and were surprised that they had imagined much the same as the director had thought the scene should go. Remember, these areall kids who are too young to remember Dances With Wolves... none of them had seen it. BTW, the scene I'm referring to is the one where Lt. Dunbar is being followed by Two-Socks. He tries to chase the wolf away, but with no success. The wolf playfully chases down the lieutenant, and the two parry with each other. The LaKota People see the two 'dancing', and that's how Dunbar gets his new name. The descriptive paragraphs in the book were excellent examples to use for this particular task.

My point is that whenever I use copyrighted material, I seek to get permission from the copyright owner. But I didn't with my videos. I thought it fell under the Fair Use Law... butI've been looking into it this weekend, and I'm having my doubts.

I did some searches today... took me forever to read the various debates and articles on it. I even checked out aol uncut video's copyright policy

"Therefore, if you create something and include portions of another person's copyrighted work in it (example: creating a video with part or all of a song in it), in most cases you must have permission to use that content for that purpose. Therefore, as a general rule, you should not include copyrighted works in your video without authorization. If we receive notice from a copyright owner that you have done so, we are required by law to remove your video from our site, unless and until you can show us that you have the rights or a permissible exception."

That's pretty plain as day to me. I need to seek permission for all those videos I've already made or they are gone.

That's what I'll be doing on MLK day... looking for some names and addresses of people to get their permission... for the Lion King music, the Yanni music, Josh Groban, Randy Travis, I've used their music (I own the CDs, but that doesn't give me any special privileges) ..... ugh!