#15 - Week 6 - The Fairness of Fair Use

First, I'd like to mention that the video about fair use with the Disney characters as central figures was really, really creative and must have been a long, tedious process to put together. It's a very different way of learning about the basics of fair use and copyright permission without reading directly from a bland textbook. Some of our previous classes have covered fair use policies, so I am pretty familiar with the concept. It seems that a lot of potential copyright infringers could be protected under fair use policies, as the policy itself can be manipulated to fit one's needs. 14 years is a reasonable time for an author or artist to benefit financially from his or her creation. After that, it should be a part of the public domain. A lifetime plus 70 years? I'm all for protecting an author or artist, but what kind of copyright rule is that? Isn't that a little excessive, and who is that benefiting, anyway? Only if there are strict stipulations concerning royalties to be paid to the author's or artist's family is that amount of copyright protection benefiting anyone.

The writers of Classroom Learning 2.0 have actually borrowed some of the content of the original Learning 2.0 program and molded it to fit their needs for this course. They received permission to do this under a Creative Commons License.

I viewed several of the Discovery Resources, but the Did You Know 4.0 YouTube video was the best tool to show just how much Web technology has altered the way we find, read, and analyze information. It is difficult to believe that three of the most visited social networking websites - facebook, myspace, and twitter - did not even exist five years ago. The prediction that we will all be connected to the portable Web by 2020 is absolutely believable. We were required to read the young adult novel Feed during the previous summer semester. For those who haven't read that novel, please do. The theme of the book reminds me of just how tapped into every possible bit of available information we will be in the not too distant future.