Unit 2 Lab 5: Copyrights, Page 1

In this lab, you will learn about copyright: its history, what kinds of copying are legal or illegal, how technology has changed copyright issues, and how copyright is enforced with software.

On this page, you will discuss and reflect on your own opinions about copying other people's creative work.

Do a show-of-hands survey of the class:
- Who has music on their phone or computer that they didn't pay for (or download from a legitimate free distributor)?
- Who has movies on their phone or computer that they didn't get legally?
- Who has games on their phone or computer that they didn't get legally?
Now a different kind of question:
- Who thinks it's okay to steal music?
- Who thinks it's okay to steal movies?
- Who thinks it's okay to steal games?

If your class is like most classes, the first set of questions got very different responses from the second set. Discuss in small groups: Is it "stealing" to download artistic works without permission? Why or why not?
Discuss in small groups: Suppose anyone were allowed to download any music, movies, etc., they want. How could the artists (musicians, writers, producers, actors, and so on) support themselves?

IOC-1.F.1

The copyright law makes it illegal for anyone to make copies of someone else's work (a book, a painting, a song, etc.) without the permission of the author. There are exceptions, as you'll learn later in this lab.

Write out your opinion on some of these copyright issues. How well does your own behavior match what you think society should do?

Copyright violation is very different from plagiarism, which means pretending that you wrote someone else's work. You can illegally copy someone's work but say it's theirs (copyright violation), or you can copy something that isn't protected by copyright because it was written a long time ago, and pretend it's yours (plagiarism). They're both illegal. Copyright is complicated, but it's easy to avoid plagiarism: Just give credit to whoever wrote the stuff you want to copy.