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ALCS raises copyright awareness |
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Written by Felix Da Silva (fdasilva@bitnip.com)
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Monday, 20 August 2007 |
 The Authors' Licensing & Collecting Society (ALCS) is sponsoring the
Edinburgh International Book Festival CILIP Carnegie Anniversary Event on Friday
24 August. As part of their sponsorship package, ALCS commissioned educational writer, Susan Elkin, to write an
accessible teachers' copyright resource pack.
The copyright resource pack is available for free from the Medals' dedicated website: http://www.ckg.org.uk/resources. It is designed for ease of use
by anyone wishing to incorporate information on copyright in lesson plans or
group discussions.
With the exponential growth in sources of information and the use of the
internet for homework and research it is becoming increasingly important that
young people are aware of copyright. As there is now so much material available
for free on the world wide web, a common misconception has developed - that
everything is free.
Barbara Hayes, ALCS Deputy CEO says,
These collaborations are an
important part of our strategy to raise awareness of authors' rights and
copyright amongst parents, teachers, librarians and young people. It is vital
that consumers, particularly young people, are helped to understand how they
benefit from the authors' rights framework. We hope it will help them to
recognise the importance of respecting authors' rights and enable them to avoid
rights' abuse during their education and the rest of their adult lives. Consumers, especially the youths, need to be aware that
someone has created that content, whether it is on the internet or in a book,
and that by law it belongs to the creator. It can be used, but the creator or
writer has the right to receive fair payment for that use and to be properly
credited. Most writers depend on the fair payment for re-use of their work to
survive and to be able to continue writing.
Meg Rosoff, the 2007
CILIP Carnegie Medal winner said,
It's important that kids understand writers' rights. Though understandable that they think they can use copy for free - there are so
many freebies on the world wide web - writing is a job, and like all workers,
writers need to be paid in order to carry on. According to a recent survey, a lot of the youths justify their piracy of other people's work with an array of reasons. They need to understand its importance and education is what will lead to an elimination of piracy.
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