Posting Work Online...

My delve into YouTube yesterday had me thinking about how I could post my student's work. Remember back a couple blog posts when I mentioned I would like to showcase my student's compositions? I wanted to be able to do this online and was perusing the internet to find different sites and ways to do that. I came across this link where a teacher was SUSPENDED for posting her student's work on the internet.

WHAAAAAT?!

Make sure you read the article FIRST, because where I was reeling when I read the headline... the teacher was not acting as a facilitator to her students. Instead she posted mistakes her student's made on her Facebook page and made fun of them. Not. Cool. (Although yes, I do understand where as a teacher things said and written by students can be funny and cute. However, as the article does state, use common sense people!!)

What I did find was this teacher's website where he posts his student's work. Education World wrote an article about it, saying that he did not have any push back from anyone yet on posting these.

What if you don't have your own website or cannot post ALL of your student's work to your website?

Here is a blog that discusses just that! They suggested a couple different sites:

Edublogs which is used by this class

Wikispaces which is used by this class

What I did notice was that the student's privacy was protected by just using their first names, but how is their intellectual property being protected? When I tried to get student work that had been posted I found that I could not unless I had logged in. To me, this seems like a very astute way to protect intellectual property and that each student had their own blog/ site that credited them with the authorship and ownership of their work.

I'm pondering as to whether or not to do this with the musical works my student's make. Would it be better to password protect? But then how would everyone know that it is their work?

A photographer friend of mine (shout out to Mrs. Erica Abbey-Hamilton!) copyrights her photos with a little watermark so that people cannot steal and use her photos illegally or without consent. With written music I believe I could do this, but what about sound recordings?

Any suggestions?

Now what about Students and their creations?

So I've begun to research some very important things. Things such as when my students and I make a YouTube video titled "We'll practice, Maybe?" will I infringe any copyrights? Will they get the credit?

I still have not heard from my law office at school, but started to peruse the internet for some examples and articles of what others have done. Finding some precedents as one might say.

As a little side note: I did come across this article in regards to what Pandora is petitioning for in compensating the artists it plays. They are asking that the government allow them to pay less than Sirius or other internet radio stations so that they can be more innovative. Read the article and tell me what you think in the poll on the side!

I did find the following happening to a social media site in Russia. They are being sued because of illegally using an artist's music. It makes me think, should I have run to the Oriole Game Sunday and begged audience with Ms. Jepsen to ask permission to make my video? Do I need to give her royalties for the music? (The link also does go into other suits occurring over intellectual property in the business world).

Check out this link and tell me what you think in the poll to the side. MANY people have been making videos like these, but I wonder if they are having to pay money or royalties or infringing on copyrights.

The following videos are samples of what this school was doing... but I did not find the school from the article's actual video. Why do you think that these videos are uploaded and OK to YouTube but that school's video is not available? (I, of course, will be emailing them and asking to get the answer!)

Gangnam Style Remix 1

Gangnam Style Remix 2

Test Me Maybe Remix 1

What's out there to help me?

So I haven't yet had a response on my delve into the musical composition world from my school system. It's also their Spring Break, which means that I'll most likely hear again next week.

What I have discovered when researching is that there are apparently companies and websites that are aiming to assist us in not having to be stifled from sharing music etc. This site is working to do just that, and their purpose on the front of the page cites many examples of what I do not understand. By "not understand" I refer to some of the sites, and other things I have never actually heard of in my every day Internet use. I am not a fan of illegally downloading music, being a musician myself. While I love that music is out there and we can hear so many different things, I believe that the musician and the groups have the right to earn a living. Since it is SO hard to do just that (insert
poor musician jokes here!), I applauded when pay for music sites came out when I was in high school.

Pandora has been one of my FAVORITE new sites and you can see what it is here.

I love that I can listen to all sorts of music without having to buy it, but that the artists are still getting credit and paid for their music. Another educational site that I have found recently thanks to my school's library media specialist has been this site, FirstCom Music. It is super cool and has some very interesting possibilities for teaching and using music in the classroom.

While I was perusing EFF's site, I did come across this really cool link to another site: Teaching Copyright. It is a great site that is aimed to help and assist teachers on teaching copyrights to children amidst this crazy world.


What are your thoughts on sites like Pandora? What about when our students create music and material in our classrooms? My next quest is to see if there is a site out there that we can use for student's music where they can also get recognized, as in a School-type Pandora. Would there be a market for that? Hit the comment buttons and let me know!

I've got the rights to that!

Copyrighting music. We hear that all the time with various performers and musicians in the music biz as I like to call it. But how about music teachers like me? The "Ms. T's" of the world. What rights do we have to protect these things we create and distribute to our students or to others?

I, of course, first wanted to know how to get a copyright. The USPTO (US Patent and Trademark Office) has a great link under their FAQ titled "Musicians and Artists." From there as I explored, I was floored to learn that I was done looking at the USPTO site and redirected to the Library of Congress Copyright Office.

I should also mention that both of these websites advise legal council if you are really, really interested in doing this sort of thing for a real song/ project/ intellectual property. Not being an attorney, or knowing one, and for the sake of my blog, I am embarking on this without legal help. I hope you'll forgive me.

Anyway, I looked at the Library of Congress Copyright Office page, and voila! "Taking the Mystery Out of Copyright For Students and Teachers" sounds like the music to my ears, and the place to start. There is a CUTE and easy to understand (especially for blonds like me!) video that tells you what copyrights are, how to read them, and how to apply for them. It even has a PDF that I linked to give you the steps. There is an application, a fee and then you mail it in and when it reaches the Copyright Office you are all set (pending their OK). Four months down the road I'll have myself a handy, dandy certificate and we'll be good to go!

"WAIT ONE MINUTE!"

Groooooooan. It's my conscious. You know. The one that thinks things through before I run headfirst into a problem. OK. What did I forget?

"Do YOU really own that song? Or does it belong to the school system/ school/ jointly between any of you?"

Oh yeah. Let's look at some of the fine print in my school system.... which actually wasn't too terrible to find. When I searched "copyright" on the website I came across this gem: Copyright For Musicians Slides .

One of the slides that really stuck out and struck me was this:

So I need to check with my school system to find out if they own the copyright. I looked up our Rules and Procedures and found this for ME as an employee:

A work created by an employee within the scope of his/her employment in Baltimore County Public Schools is a work made for hire.  Baltimore County Public Schools are the initial owner of all the rights of copyright in the work unless a prior written agreement is signed by both parties.

Use the following copyright notice for Baltimore County Public Schools' publications:

Copyright © 1997 Baltimore County Public Schools.  All rights reserved.

And for students:

vii. GUIDELINES FOR USE OF STUDENT INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

A. BCPS WILL PUBLISH OR PRODUCE A STUDENT’S INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CREATED DURING SCHOOL-SPONSORED ACTIVITIES AND/OR LEARNING EXPERIENCES IN ACCORDANCE WITH BOARD OF EDUCATION POLICY AND SUPERINTENDENT’S RULE 6202, TELECOMMUNICATIONS ACCESS TO ELECTRONIC INFORMATION, SERVICES, AND NETWORKS.

B. THE NOTICE OF COPYRIGHT SHALL BE USED WHEN ELECTRONICALLY PUBLISHING OR PRODUCING STUDENT INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY.

Well OK then. It's time I send a hypothetical email to the Law Office of my School System just to see what I am dealing with and what needs to happen. In the meantime I want YOU to check this article out. Also check out what the School Library Journal thought. What are your opinions and perspectives? Does your school system have the same thing?

I know my rights... my COPYrights... maybe?

I've been thinking, and working and as a music teacher sometimes I need to compose things. It turns out for one of my schools we do not have a school song. Well, we did many years ago with some words that a teacher "perhaps" remembers, and no actual music to go with it. So in the past two weeks I've scratched my head and composed a school song that is suitable for the school and for my students to play/ sing. So what are copyrights and how are they applicable to my intellectual property? What is my intellectual property? Is the school song I just composed my intellectual property? How do I protect it so that it stays our school song? How does technology inhibit or enhance protecting this or any recordings? We're going to explore this in the next couple of posts.

As far as Intellectual Property, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization it "refers to creations of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works, and symbols, names, images and designs used in commerce."

Ok. So my school song is Intellectual Property according to the "World." Sweet. So what if I'm not in commerce? My music is not commercially being sold, my fifth grade angels will be honking away at our concert, and hopefully for years to come. I want it to be out there though, in recording and hopefully in the form of written music. But I want it to be accessible to all.

According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Intellectual Property is "creations of the mind- creative works or ideas embodied in a form that can be shared or can enable others to recreate, emulate, or manufacture them." Again, I'm good. My school song is still Intellectual Property in these United States of America. The USPTO lists that there are four ways we can "protect" intellectual property: patents, trademarks, copyrights or trade secrets. So let's see which one I need for my school song. 

Patents refer to not allowing others to use, sell or make whatever it is that you have a patent over. It's not forever and only applies to/ in the United States. You have to reapply after it is set to expire. This is not what I want, because I have not "invented" anything. Next! 


Trade Secrets are referred to as "information that companies keep secret to give an advantage over their competitors." Yeah, that is not what I am doing. My school song is for ALL to know and enjoy. :) NEXT!

Trademarks "protect words, names, symbols, sounds, or colors that distinguish goods and services from those manufactured or sold by others and to indicate the source of the goods." Better, but I'm not sure this is what I want since trademarks are still involved in the commerce world, and since they can, they can be renewed FOREVER. Not really what I want. NEXT!

Copyrights protect works of authorship, such as writings, music, and worlds of art that have been tangibly expressed." YES! THIS IS IT! It also says that the Library of Congress registers them and they are good for as long as I'm alive and then seventy years after that.


Ok. Now. How do I do this and what do I do to get a copyright? Should I be getting the copyright or should my school? Hmmm... every time it seems as though I answer a question I find another five!! We will explore this set of questions in my next post!

Now appearing...

Hello/ Welcome to my very first Technology Blog! My name is Ms. T and I am an elementary instrumental music teacher who will begin to break down the "fourth wall" (the imaginary wall between stage and audience) between you and Intellectual Property.

Intellectual Property is a scary but powerful concept. Do we own what we dream, think, believe? If so, how do we monitor this and how can we control who uses it? Do we even want to control how others view and use our ideas? 

One of the ways that I want to explore this is through music. Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart had these wonderful compositions that today we use freely. For those who aren't aware, Mozart wrote this little composition:

Today we know it better as this:

Or even this: 

Or how about this:

So you see my predicament. 

Looking from the perspective that you do not want your music stolen, here are some questions one could ask:

• If this happens with Mozart, what will happen today with music composed by our students or ourselves? 
• Who does the music belong to when they compose during school? 
• Should students and parents copyright their musical compositions? 
• Should they be placed on the internet, via technology for others to take and use?
• What should happen if they are stolen, used, or adapted? 
• What about music sharing sites/ piracy/ torrent sites?

If you look from the perspective that you believe there are benefits to sharing your music and musical ideas, here are some questions:

• Do we want to stop the ebb and flow of sharing music and compositions?
• How would this negatively affect/ effect music and how it changes?
• Is all music really original, or simply just a "variation" of a composition that already exists?
• If we did not have music shared via technology, how would the musical world be?
• Isn't iTunes, Pandora, GrooveShark, Spotify assisting in the collaboration of musicians and the spread of music through our cultures?

Through my exploration of intellectual property, technology, and how we share/ copyright our music, I'm hoping to shed some light and break down that fourth wall so to speak. Feel free to ask questions and comment below!