For this post, I am not going to give any identifying information about the school, people, or specific content involved (but if you're an expert "Googler" you can probably find the info...)
Schools are safe from copyright infringement, right? Wrong. When I was working at an independent school in the Mid-Atlantic region, one of our "rival schools" was involved in a very tricky lawsuit involving copyright infringement. It was all over an admissions video they produced and released for the upcoming admissions season. The school produced a beautiful, two-minute admissions video with children engaging in all sorts of academic activities, sports, and fine arts. They did all of the filming and editing in-house. So what was the problem? The background music. The school chose a popular ballad to run through the background of the video. Although they credited the singer at the end of the video, they did not get the proper permission from the copyright holder. The school eventually settled out of court, but it was a long tedious process.
It is important to educate students about copyright and fair use. I think it is also important to re-educate teachers and school administrators, so that they don't make the mistakes we warn our students about.
Oof, that's rough! My high school's mascot was a bear and they got busted for copyright infringement for using a bear that was apparently far too similar to the likeness of the Memphis Grizzlies' bear, so midway through high school we all had to buy new shirts with a different looking bear. It still makes me laugh a little!
ReplyDeleteWow! There is a school in Maryland going through that right now... their mascot is "too close" to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jacket.
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