Copyright Assignment

For this project, I selected two videos from TeacherTube. Sorry, they didn't format perfectly, but they are still watchable. The first one is a skit by Abbot and Costello playing around with math. It was very entertaining, and played around quite a bit with common errors made with division, multiplication, and addition. In reviewing Copyright standards, I had to determine whether or not it served an educational purpose. Although it is fairly slapstick comedy, there was still some educational gain from watching the short clip. It gives excellent examples of what not to do, so in that sense, I found it worth while. It exceeded the time limits by just a little bit, taking 3 min 06 sec, instead of the normally allotted 3 minutes. Also, the teacher did not include any sort of citation, leaving viewers with no idea who produced the clip, what larger work it is a part of, or any clue or assistance to find it again. Also, because no citation was included, I have no idea whether the clip was legitimately used or otherwise. While there are some major oversights in this example, I found there was both entertainment and educational value to the clip.

The second video is far more complex; it is a visual hodgepodge of pictures and clips taken from who knows where. there is some definite breach in Copyright as Billy Joel's entire song "We Didn't Start the Fire" is used against the backdrop of historical and pop cultural images. In that regard, some value is lost as the song may be accessed freely across the internet without any need of purchase. The queston of images, however, is too much for myself to fully answer. There are so many clips and pictures, I would have no way of saying what was fair use and what was not. Again, no citation was recorded, so the collage of posters and video clips could not be found again without great effort. I remember the Copyright video discussing some limitations on pictures used in any one presentation, however, in this case, I can understand the excessive use. I found it strangly educational. In watching posters, magazine covers, historical pictures, and short video clips across the screen, I took in the world in a nutshell. It was breif, but the format used also emphasized the changing technologies of the time, the cultural movement, the jumping of social issues in such a fast-paced manner that I did find actual educationial value. However, that does not exuse away the other obvious breaches in Copyright law.