Protecting Intellectual Property – SCN Encourager 5/7/2013
My idea for “legal plagiarizing” didn’t work out so well.
When I sent out the article from Robert D. Smith last week I did so with begrudging admiration. His advice about how to turn a passing thought into a plausible idea made great sense.
I wrote how I wished I had penned the article, but since I hadn’t… the only way I could gain any personal benefit (legally) would be for you to read Smith’s article while pretending in your mind that I was the author.
My concept for legally plagiarizing an intellectual property – which connects the full admission of non-authorship on the front end TO THE broad imaginative powers of the reader on the back end – seemed like a sure winner.
I was so proud of it that I bragged about it to my wife.
She now thinks I’m a bigger nut than she suspected.
“Please tell me you’re kidding,” she said. “What you wrote had to be the dumbest thing ever.”
She hasn’t read all of my Encouragers so I kept silent and didn’t push the point.
“I hope you sent out decent information about copyrights along with your funny business,” she continued. “You did do this, didn’t you?”
“Of course, I did,” I said, but knowing I should’ve said “I cannot recall.”
So quickly now (and keep this between just us…):
Here is an excellent Slideshare presentation for you to check out. It accurately reviews the entire range of “intellectual property” issues involved and provides a number of follow-up resources. There are 47 slides and slide #29 calls attention to the “Five Principles” that teachers and students always need to keep in mind.
Slideshare is a valuable learning source. Although some “click through” presentations leave a lot out, Renee Hobbs (Professor and Founding Director at Media Education Lab, University of Rhode Island) delivers a clear and concise perspective I should’ve provided you last week. Check out her awesome website.
And my new plan is this:
As you read through Renee Hobbs’ comprehensive (yet pleasingly light) Slideshare of all things copyright, I will not ask you to imagine that I had any role in creating the presentation.
I’m just asking you – while you’re reading it – to imagine you actually received it last week!
Tom Page, SCN
