Instructional designers and developers usually lack a basic understanding of copyright law and fair use, but are expected to be experts. Copyright training, if available, is often boring and functionally useless. Equally critical, the ID community doesn’t know how to find and use photos, video, and music properly. The continuing struggle to quickly develop content may lead us to infringe upon someone else’s work, expose our work to unpleasant legal action, and miss out on using free media to enhance our projects.

In this session you will learn copyright essentials through an entertaining snapshot of the law and recent cases. You will explore how to apply legal concepts such as the fair use doctrine to everyday scenarios. You will become more confident finding sites that offer public domain, Creative Commons, and open access-licensed works. You will leave this session with a better understanding of copyright law and how to find media you can use that will help you become more productive and focused as you maximize your financial and creative resources.

In this session, you will learn:

• The important issues surrounding copyright law and fair use of images, video, and music downloaded from the Internet
• To apply copyright law, and fair use in particular, in the context of digital media
• How to find websites that offer public domain and open access media
• About Creative Commons licensing and which licenses are most accommodating

Audience:
Novice to advanced designers, developers, project managers, managers, and directors.

Technology discussed in this session:
API for Creative Commons licenses; plugins for proper attribution of work.