Copyright Reflections

After listening to Jackie Pearson on Monday night, it really opened my eyes to copyright infringement. I think the most eye opening realization was just how strict the policies can be, especially for schools. I agree it is imperative to cite everything that is borrowed for school use, but I didn't know the strict guidelines for fair use. My undergrad required use to used multiple sources for every paper and had strict rules on how to cite. This has really prepared me for copyrighted materials. Since I am not a teacher in the classroom, I always thought teachers could use anything they wanted without regard to copyright as long as it stayed in the classroom. What I gathered from the lecture that is mostly true because of the special consideration toward teaching, but not to the extent I had originally thought. I am duel track in my program but I still sometimes think that many of the lectures and speakers are geared toward teachers. I would have loved to hear some information on the copyright issues in a public library. After reading the chapter on legal issues I noticed many of the laws were focused on copying in the public libraries and I wanted to know more about that. I think the whole class was scared to death after hearing all the ways one could infringe on copyrights and made our heads reel from all the information we were given. Unfortunately, I could not hear the part on citations very well and my question was, "As long as it is cited and not used for commercial gain can we use anything we like?" I have hearing loss in my right ear from shooting guns as a child without sound guards. If there is background noise or soft speaking the sounds muffle in my ears. Besides that it tried my best to wrap my head around all that information and it was just so much. I feel that now I have my fair use guidelines in hand I can study them and be more aware of what I am doing. I feel this information is highly important and maybe there needs to be a special class on these laws. It would make us all feel a little better if we had a better understanding of the legal jargon. Ms. Pearson was incredibly knowledgeable and prepared making it highly interesting and an all around excellent presentation. As a final thought on what the copyright presentation did for me was to open my eyes to all the different was to protect ones self by simply asking permission and giving credit where credit is due. Ms. Pearson made the point of copyright infringement being like speeding down the road, it is looked at as not being illegal until you get caught. I can say those words will stick with me until I die and now that I work in a library I am going to try to make more of our patrons aware of the rules. I feel I will be a better librarian now that I have this information. I really hope that maybe ASU will add a grant writing and copyright law class to help better the MLS program and make us that much better at our profession.