Copyright Usage and Plagiarism

Do we as a global society need to rethink copyright laws?

Given the traffic on the internet and amount of copying and borrowing, policing copyright infringement might be so unmanageable that we will need to rethink copyright. If not, we will have to come up with a tracking mechanism or monitoring body to alert us to infringements.

According to our course instructors, Youtube is pulling videos that are even questionable in their use of copyrighted material, and playing it safe even though fair use may be applicable. There must be some way to track material and verify if the original source is copyrighted or not.

Unfortunately, the fair use clause appears to be grey enough to make the use of some algorithm for monitoring materials impractical.

If society continues to develop toward instant publication, viewing, and borrowing of digital text, photos and videos via the web, will the issue of copyright essentially become moot even before society has a chance to rethink it? I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if this did in fact happen.

What's our role as educators in copyright usage in schools?

Model and teach appropriate use of copyrighted materials for sure. Try to give could scenarios that students can appreciate rather than just the rules. Since students these days have grown up with the ability to copy practically anything from the web, merely knowing the rules won't likely change behaviors.

I envision using case studies where students discuss appropriate use and consequences for inappropriate use. Some good examples seem to be very popular these days, such as the photonapping cases of Allison Stokke or Alison Chang that we read about in the article Understanding and Respecting Copyright a Problem for Many.

Does ISBs AUP take this issue into account?

Sure enough, under internet policy there is a comment about following copyright law for anything graphics or text that are taken from the internet. Does the AUP, however, need to address copyright in technology projects that do not involve graphics or text from the internet? I'm imagining non-internet acquired things, such as music, digitized graphics, photos, etc.

Or is this covered under our schools standard, non-technology academic dishonesty policy. From what I can tell this general policy covers ideas, words, or statement, but not music, photos, etc. Perhaps this belongs in both the technology AUP as well as the Academic Dishonesty Policy.