After researching copyright through a variety of mediums, I have developed a better understanding about the legality surrounding the issue. I have also become more aware of the effects copyright laws have on education. Although I still find many aspects surrounding copyright very confusing, I found the articles I read to contain very beneficial information and think they offered good perspective about how education is being hindered due to strict copyright laws.
Both “Openness as Catalyst” by David
Wiley and “Worlds in Collision” by Stephen Marshall are persuasive arguments
written to convince the reader that copyright laws are impeding education from
reaching its full potential. Wiley uses ethics to argue that education should
be about sharing, giving, and generosity. He backs up this statement by using
the words of Thomas Jefferson to compare knowledge to fire – just as one can
give knowledge or an idea without “giving up” anything, a lit candle can give a
flame to an unlit candle at no expense to the first. He also compares people
who don’t want to share their works for free to greedy two year olds. He says
that copyright laws tend to allow and enable this “bad behavior” (Wiley).
I think that Wiley makes a lot of
good points in his article, and I agree that education should be about sharing,
giving, and generosity. He is filled with passion and his writing reflects his
strong viewpoints. As much as I enjoyed reading his article and found it very
persuading, I couldn’t help but constantly think of the counterargument that I
kept hoping would be addressed, but wasn’t. In a perfect world, knowledge would
spread continuously and freely, like from one candle to another – but we live
in a world where people expect get paid for their work. I couldn’t help to
constantly think, “What if Wiley’s dream became a reality?”. If all educational
information could be passed along instantly and at no cost – if it were “open”
as he calls it – would people continue to work so hard to publish information with
no return for their labor? Granted, I'm sure there are a lot of selfless people who would
continue to spread their knowledge, but what about the professionals who make
careers out of sharing their knowledge, and dedicating a large part of their lives
to do so? They couldn’t afford to continue to work for free, so they would likely have to
find a job doing something else to earn a living, and I believe our professional
data bases would dwindle. According to Marshall, author of “Worlds in Collision,”
this lack of professional resources might not actually be as detrimental as I
perceive it to be.
Marshall suggests that Web 2.0
technologies have the potential to improve the quality of education. He defines Web 2.0 as “social collaboration
technologies” (Marshall). He would likely argue that although there might be a
lot of professionals who would lose their occupations if their work wasn’t
protected by copyright, that wouldn’t affect education as negatively as I think
it would because of the rise of the Web 2.0 technologies. It could be argued
that the credibility lost by the few professionals would be made up by the
value of the masses contributing in social collaboration. I haven’t yet formed
a firm position on that matter because I can see both positives and negatives
of depending on collaborative work more than strictly professional work.
One thing I can agree with Marshall
firmly on is his suggestion for change. He doesn’t advocate for disregarding
the laws and using resources as we wish, but he recommends that we try to
persuade the government of the importance of education, and the hindrance that
copyright laws have on it. I agree, and I think that we need to get the
government to reconsider how important education is, and how much our education
system would benefit if these laws were lifted and we were able to access our
true potential of learning. Although I think we must consider the impacts of
getting rid of (or changing) these laws, as an educator I can’t help but to agree with Wiley
that we should be generous with our knowledge, and give and share it freely for
the betterment of our education and society.
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