Acknowledgement
Sheila Walter, Information Resources and Services Support Specialist and Thun Library’s resident children’s book and primary education expert, conducted the research and recommended the sources in this guide.
Kids as Creators
Can kids claim copyrights? Yes they can!
Mike Masnick poses interesting questions in his 2010 web article, “How Does Copyright Apply to Your Kids’ Monster Drawings?” Masnick examines The Monster Engine, a multimedia project of artist Dave DeVries. DeVries paints illustrations based on children’s drawings of monsters and displays the works side-by-side. Masnick asks whether DeVries artistic process implicates the children’s copyrights to their original monster sketches (it does), and what this means for the legal status of The Monster Engine.
Silentó aka Richard Lamar Hawk was seventeen when his music video for “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)” went viral on YouTube in 2015, the year he was named one of “music’s hottest stars” in Billboard‘s “21 Under 21 2015” list. It is never too early to start teaching kids about copyright!
Copyright Teaching Resources
Nancy Bentley’s book, Don’t be a Copycat! Write a Great Report Without Plagiarizing, introduced young readers to the concept of plagiarism and skills like research, note-taking, and citing sources.
CopyrightKids.org provides kid-friendly information about copyright with resources for teachers and parents. Copyright is age-blind – every creative work is eligible for copyright protection, regardless of the creator’s age! – so CopyrightKids.org’s copyright registration guide is a useful tool.
Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Teaching Copyright resource guide links to kid-friendly copyright curriculum materials with an emphasis on fair use, free speech, and the public domain.
Julie Greller’s 2013 blog post “Let’s Teach Our Students About Copyright: 15 Sites Which Can Assist You” provides a directory of resources for teaching students about copyright, plagiarism and fair use. The directory includes links to resources from the Library of Congress, Creative Commons and the Copyright Advisory Network. The Educational Technology and Mobile Learning blog likewise published a list of “10 Must Have Resources to Teach About Copyright and Fair Use” in 2013.
High school media specialist and librarian Tara Woodall’s 2017 blog post “The Right Stuff: Teaching Kids About Copyright” provides instruction ideas and resources for copyright education. Woodall frames copyright as an opportunity to impart ethical reasoning to students that they can immediately apply as digital citizens. Woodall also encourages teachers to model copyright and fair use for students in their teaching materials.
Cory Doctorow’s 2016 Boing Boing blog post “Teaching Kids About Copyright: Schools and Fair Use” warns against an ‘abstinence-only’ approach to copyright and encourages educators to teach students about fair use.
Shannon Bussell’s 2014 animated video “Copyright & Plagiarism for Kids” teaches the basics of copyright, plagiarism, and source citations to a primary education student audience.
Copyright and Fair Use for Story Time
Paul Schaffner’s 1995 essay “How Fair Are Children’s Librarians?” provides case studies in fair use considerations for children’s books and stories. Schaffner demonstrates how to apply the four factors of fair use in working with content for children’s story times and similar programming.
NPR’s Planet Money 2016 feature story “What A ‘Goodnight Moon’ Spinoff Tells Us About Copyright Law” applies the four factors of fair use to consider whether a reporter’s Goodnight Moon parody could be published and sold for profit.