The Media Spot

One of three videos produced for The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education, this video demonstrates legal uses of copyrighted materials in the context of a 4th grade media education video production. It also captures the TMS production process in action on a well-integrated media education production project. The video shows a class of Title I 4th grade students search for, analyze and acquire copyrighted images and music, then "repurpose" those works to create unique videos. This production process dislodges the works from their original purpose, and transforms them into the necessary building blocks of a rich critical thinking activity.

Since September of 2007 we have been contributing to the development of The Code (released November 11, 2008), a coordinated effort by the media literacy community, supported by experts at American University and The Media Education Lab at Temple University to simplify the legalities of using copyrighted materials in an academic setting.

Last Friday, I was honored to represent TMS at a small group discussion between 18 educators and media literacy consultants to discuss fair use in media education at The Academy for Educational Development in Manhattan. The event was a follow up to the release of The Cost of Copyright Confusion for Media Literacy (PDF), the first report of The Center for Social Media's attempt to develop a national "code of practices" to allow media literacy educators to develop curricula without fear of legal action, which I was interviewed for last spring. The discussion has me feeling pretty confident about how TMS deals with copyrighted material in our collaborative production work.

Rhys was recently interviewed for an upcoming study on copyright's role in media education, entitled Mind-Forged Manacles: The Cost of Copyright Confusion for Media Literacy. The research was conducted by some of the leading voices in the media literacy field: Renee Hobbs of Temple University, and Peter Jaszi and Pat Aufderheide of American University.

Andy Carvin's excellent learning.now blog at pbs.org has a great article today called Achieving a Consensus on Fair Use and Media Literacy.