Harry Potter Can Fly!

I cam across this blogpost today on copyright and it talks about using the mnemonic Harry Potter Can Fly to "to remember copyright and fair use guidelines relating to media sharing and fair use." This is one of the hardest things, I think, for educators to understand and remember. Some people are oblivious to it and some are completely terrified that they are going to do something wrong. I like this mnemonic and plan to share it with the professors I work with. H=homegrown. Did you create it? Was it given to you by the creator to use? P=public domain. These are works shared by everyone. Some things automatically belong to the public domain and this INCLUDES government documents. This is not something that I think most people know. However, other things pass into public domain eventually - though that seems to becoming more and more difficult as copyright laws are extended. Determining whether or not something is in the public domain, especially orphaned works, is one of the most difficult things to figure out and is part of what's behind the Google Books lawsuit. C=Creative Commons. This is something many of us are familiar with. And it's pretty easy to understand! And find! People who copyright their resources and materials under Creative Commons licenses give you permission to use their information - under certain circumstances - right up front. F=Fair Use. I think this is some is the most confusing of the concepts to understand. Fair use is not a right, and it is not clearly defined. It's actually a legal defense if you are accused of copyright violations. But basically, it provides for some use of some material that is copyrighted without prior permission of the author or creator. Definitely check this post out. It includes links to videos and provides more commentary. Copyright is definitely NOT simple!