The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power.
The Release of The Cost of Copyright Confusion for Media Literacy
On September 25 2007, we released our initial report on copyright and fair use for media literacy education, The Cost of Copyright Confusion for Media Literacy Education, at American University in Washinton, D.C.
In addition to the Cost of Copyright Confusion for Media Literacy, we also released an accompanying video that illustrates key ideas from the report. It is based on scores
of longform interviews with teachers and shows that the fundamental goals
of media literacy education -- to cultivate critical thinking and
expression about media and its social role -- are compromised by
unnecessary copyright restrictions.
As a result of poor guidance,
counterproductive guidelines, and fear, teachers use less effective
teaching techniques, teach and transmit erroneous copyright
information, fail to share innovative instructional approaches, and do
not take advantage of new digital platforms.
This is not only unfortunate but unnecessary, since copyright law
permits a wide range of uses of copyrighted material without permission
or payment. However, educators today have no consensus around what
constitutes acceptable fair use practices. The report concludes with a
call for educators to develop a consensus around their interpretation
of their most valuable copyright tool: fair use.