Photo Credit: Landry Heaton (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode)
I loved Frank LoMonte's webinar from last week about student press law in all forms. Particularly, I liked learning more about copyright and what our newspaper can and can't do.
I took over the newspaper just last year, and the past adviser let the students take images and graphics from really anywhere. I knew that wasn't ok, but I didn't exactly know what they could use. So I didn't allow them to use images besides the pictures they took on their own (or borrowed from yearbook) or the pictures we used from a paid archived. Obviously, that limited what we could use, and some of our pages, especially the news section, looked boring, but I didn't know what else to do.
One of my students was obsessed with basketball and our local NBA team. He asked again and again if he could use the Jazz logo for stories he would write, and I denied him time after time. I did try asking other teachers in the district about what I could use, but no one could give me a straight answer.
Now, I know that I can use logos without a problem. I also learned about Google's Advance Image Search which I explored today. I'm excited to teach my students about these great options. I admit that it still makes me nervous to use others' work, but I think I'll feel more comfortable with practice.
Does anyone have any other resources to use as a guideline to teach students about copyright?Anything like a resource sheet that students can refer to so they're not taking a shot in the dark with images? I'd like something concrete.
Deviating slightly from copyright, but still in the realm of press law and ethics: where do you draw the line with your students when discussing topics they can and cannot write about in the school newspaper? It's such a fine line, and I'd love some input.
Emily Sell
Bingham High School
South Jordan, Utah
Emily,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, thank you for telling me about the Reynolds institute. I wouldn't have made it without you. Second, I'm excited to learn a lot from the program and bring back a bunch of info that we can share in our collaborative district meetings. There was a resource you discussed for gathering images from local press in one of your meetings. Do you still have that info? The advanced search option that Frank introduced is going to be great for both of us. See you in AZ!
Copyright law is one of the biggest things we can teach students in today's social media saturated world...no wonder we get nervous!
ReplyDeleteOne other resource is Tribune News Service, http://www.mctdirect.com. There is a fee, but, if your program can afford it, you can get some great pieces.
Lisa Cass
Independence HS
Glendale, Arizona
Thanks for the link, Lisa! I use Tribune News Service with my students, and this is the link that you'll need, Steve. I like that it's a one-time fee for their archive, but we do sometimes struggle to find pictures that are relevant to everything my students write about. But it's helpful for the most part.
DeleteWe use a lot of public domain art at Cronkite News, but we do more coverage of the environment and subjects that lend themselves to stock art than high school news organizations. Most images you'll find on government websites are public domain, and most government websites have notices stating that. If you do an advanced search with "gov" as the domain, there's a lot of stock art to be had. Hope this helps.
ReplyDeleteSteve Elliott
Arizona State University
Phoenix
Also, Cronkite News content is free and available to news organizations that run it with credit. You can see our offerings at http://cronkitenews.asu.edu/clients. We have lots of photos.
DeleteSteve Elliott
Arizona State University
Phoenix
To address your tacked-on question at the end about where you draw the line in terms of what you let your kids write about, I think a lot of how you answer that depends on what kind of publication you are. If you're an open forum publication, for example, then the students should be making these decisions, not the advisers. That happens to be the case at my school, so the way I will have my "say" when they bring up something that worries me can range from sarcastic remarks like "you're trying to get me fired, aren't you?" to careful walks through the SPJ's Code of Ethics, along with questions like: "How are you going to go about doing this? Who are you going to talk to? Who's going to be on the record?" And so on.
ReplyDeleteI personally believe that no topic should be off the table outright. I do believe that there are topics that are not great ideas. I'd rather nudge my students toward drawing that conclusion and making them feel like they're the ones who killed an idea rather than them thinking "my adviser said no." Just my thoughts...
Keith Carlson
Naperville Central High School
Naperville, Ill.