Ai, Fair Use and the First Amendment
by Mark Dzula
Description
Writers are on strike in Hats against AI companies, and consider what’s at stake in each situation.
- Students will consider the four factors of fair use to determine if companies are on solid legal footing when they make this claim when they utilize large data sets to train AI bots.
- Students will research and weigh the role of precedent to predict how the courts may rule in these cases, including work with primary source documents.
- Students will propose guidelines that safeguard the First Amendment and protect the rights of content creators in the face of rapidly developing AI.
Length
One eighty-minute block, with HW
Materials / resources
- ChatGPT maker OpenAI faces a lawsuit over how it used people’s data. Report in the Washington Post
- Sarah Silverman Sues OpenAI and Meta Over Copyright Infringement. Report in the New York Times
- With Warhol, It’s Time to Transform Transformative Use, opinion piece in Copyright Lately
- Copyright Fair Use Examples, from JDSUPRA
- Four Factors of Fair Use
- Transformation or Derivation: Modern Trends in the Fair Use Doctrine from Software to Photography, from IPWatchdog
Day 1 step-by-step
- Opening activity: Determining transformative use. Teacher flashes examples from Copyright Fair Use Examples on the board, asking ‘was this a case of fair use?’
- After brief discussion, pull up the four factors of fair use, discuss each aspect. Consider grouping into four groups, one for each factor. Groups discuss, then share out their understanding of each factor. Using precedent from the cases presented in the opening activity, determine more nuanced and specific understanding of the limits of fair use.
- In-class reading (choose one):
- Reading Response: How might our understanding of the four factors of fair use be impacted by the reading materials, especially given the capacity of AI to consume large data sets for training and to rely on human-generated content (copyrighted or not). How might the rights of citizens and creative workers be respected?
- HW: Write 2 page double-spaced opinion piece on AI, copyright, fair use, and the First Amendment. What should companies do as they pursue AI? What should creators expect? How might they safeguard their material? What should citizens keep in mind as they allow companies access to their data? Compelling essays will provide examples (cases, precedent, etc) and consider prospective counter arguments.
Teacher notes:
A lesson or previous practice with persuasive writing in legal settings may also help students feel prepared to execute the lesson well.
This lesson could be extended by requiring the students to go much further in-depth with their research. Another class could be devoted to a mock hearing, with role play with students acting as judges (and assuming their POVs) and well as litigants (assuming their POVs) in the cases described in the reading materials.
Read MoreLitigating social media platforms: editorial judgment and the First Amendment
by Mark Dzula
Description
Currently, there are major legal battles over who has the right to regulate content on social media. Should companies make decisions about what to publish or have the ability to limit what goes out on their platforms? Or should government have the ability to determine which companies are protected by the First Amendment and to what extent?
A key distinction in these cases is the difference between a newspaper/publication (which is beholden to a certain set of laws) and a social media platform. In which ways are these entities similar? In which key ways are they different? Based on these differences, how should laws and the First Amendment apply?
Bringing help to news deserts: Lesson Plan
Description
The Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media at University of North Carolina first reported on the “news desert” phenomenon in 2016. And the picture only became more dire. Today, the Center’s definition is “a community, either rural or urban, with limited access to the sort of credible and comprehensive news and information that feeds democracy at the grassroots level.”
Think about it: If voters don’t know what’s going on in government, how can they make informed decisions in the voting booth? How can they choose the right leaders if all they hear is hype from one side or even conflicting information from several sides? As far as schools go, how can they decide who should be on the school board, the group that makes important decisions about curriculum, administrators and policies that impact everyone?
In a news desert that doesn’t have trained journalists seeking truth and expert opinions about education in its community, students can help fill that void. What can students do to ensure factual and useful information gets to voters before they go to the polls? How can they help their families and neighbors and still learn a lot as they do so?
That’s where this lesson plan can get the process started.
Objectives
- Students will acknowledge that local news media are missing important stories about education in their community.
- Students will recognize how information about certain topics make a difference in how voters will react.
- Students will be practice news coverage that is well-sourced and fairly balanced.
- Students will set up a plan to start filling the holes in educational news coverage in their communities.
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.8 | Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is valid, and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; identify false statements and fallacious reasoning. |
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.7 | Analyze various accounts of a subject told in different mediums (e.g., a person’s life story in both print and multimedia), determining which details are emphasized in each account. |
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.4 | Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g., how the language of a court opinion differs from that of a newspaper). |
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.6 | Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how an author uses rhetoric to advance that point of view or purpose. |
Length
Two or more class periods – to introduce and set up the possibilities. (Four days between to give students time to use the graphic organizers for their “research.”
Materials / resources
- Do you live in a news desert? A report from Penelope Muse Abernathy, Knight Chari in Journalism and Digital Media Economics
- News Deserts in Education Graphic Organizer for looking for media coverage of education to use for the assignment below.
- Potential Stories Graphic Organizer to brainstorm for education/school stories the staff could dover.
- More complete Graphic Organizer from U.S. News Deserts to keep track of all coverage.
Day 1 step-by-step
- Bell-ringer: Ask students to write on a slip of paper where they and their family get their news. Tell them to be specific – which websites, newspapers, magazines, television, social media, friends, etc.
- Then zero in by asking them where they get their information about what’s going on in their school district? What kinds of stories do they see or hear about local schools and education? (NOTE: If students consume little media, give them time to hunt for local stories online and see what they can find. You might start by listing some possible categories: school board decisions, school board meetings, school district hiring/firing, curriculum content/books, topics, etc., activities in classes, sports scores and game coverage, sports coaching, sports equipment, building conditions/maintenance, extra-curricular activities — clubs, debate, student government etc.) Is that information important to voters? Is it available to them?
- If they are in an educational news desert, this may be difficult, so stop the process when students start complaining they are finding nothing. You’ve made your point.
- Share with them the definition of a news desert. (See pulled quote halfway down this page)
- Discuss if students think they are in a news desert, specifically about their local schools. Why or why not? List on the board the stories of things going on in their school district that community members should know about. Help students separate rumor from reportable information.
- On their own computers or one the teacher uses to project, look at the “Do you live in a news desert?” map and explanation. Also use the pull-down below it to look at your state. What are you learning?
- Distribute the two graphic organizers and discuss keeping track over the next four days what they find in local media about their schools and what they believe from being in the schools SHOULD be reported.
Five days later step by step
- First discuss the findings of education coverage in your community. How extensive is it? What stories are being told? Who is telling them? Do they seem accurate and thorough?
- Then discuss what is missing. Make a list on the board of the stories students think the community should know and why they should know this.
- When most stories are listed, then go back and fill in who could/should be sources for reporters trying to tell these stories.
- Finally – and this might take several days to work through – what ways could this class/staff get the important information out to the community? Things go consider:
- Who would do the reporting? Whom would they interview?
- What media outlets could they use?
- Student news website?
- Student print media?
- Instagram?
- Twitter?
- Facebook?
- Any other potential outlets?
- How would be promote this and let the community know it is for them?
- What are the pros and cons of trying to do this?
Teacher notes:
Clearly, this is an ongoing commitment. Students would have to see the value and what would be gained by doing this. And they can’t turn into local community reporters overnight. But even if just two or three important stories get out that wouldn’t have happened otherwise, it’s a way to help the community, the students, the faculty, and, in essence, democracy.
Read MoreFrom Ai to book banning and news deserts, Constitution Day empowers journalistic thinking
JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Committee wants to help you and your students celebrate their free speech rights this year. Constitution Day, observed Sept. 17 yearly in commemoration of the signing of the United States Constitution, is an excellent time to explore and discuss the status of the Constitution in today’s USA.
• Bringing help to news deserts (by Candace Bowen, MJE) Think about it: If voters don’t know what’s going on in government, how can they make informed decisions in the voting booth? How can they choose the right leaders if all they hear is hype from one side or even conflicting information from several sides? As far as schools go, how can they decide who should be on the school board, the group that makes important decisions about curriculum, administrators and policies that impact everyone?
• Localizing Book Banning, 2023 Constitution Day Activity (by Kristin Taylor, MJE) Focus: One of the key skills of a good reporter is the ability to localize national news. This activity can be used on Constitution Day as part of a larger discussion of students’ access to information or another time as practice localizing news. The topic: Rising instances of book bans across the United States.
• Litigating social media platforms: editorial judgment and the First Amendment (by Mark Dzula) Currently, there are major legal battles over who has the right to regulate content on social media. Should companies make decisions about what to publish or have the ability to limit what goes out on their platforms? Or should government have the ability to determine which companies are protected by the First Amendment and to what extent?
A key distinction in these cases is the difference between a newspaper/publication (which is beholden to a certain set of laws) and a social media platform. In which ways are these entities similar? In which key ways are they different? Based on these differences, how should laws and the First Amendment apply?
• Ai, Fair Use and the First Amendment ( by Mark Dzula ) Writers are on strike in Hats against AI companies, and consider what’s at stake in each situation.Students will research and weigh the role of precedent to predict how the courts may rule in these cases, including work with primary source documents.
Constitution Day puzzles: Puzzle 1 | Puzzle 1 key | Puzzle 2 | Puzzle 2 key (Kirsten Gilliland) Looking for a break between lessons and activities? Try these Constitution Day crosswords puzzles (with keys) on legal terminology, court decisions and more.
• In addition to this new material, check out our numerous lessons and activities from previous years: 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013.
• This is also a great time to review student press rights particular to your community. How aware are your students of their own editorial policy? School board policy? Guidelines for ethical performance and meaningful, all-encompassing staff manual? How about the existence (or lack thereof) of a New Voices law? Are there ways your students could strengthen or improve their specific protections? You can always check out additional resources on this website or the Student Press Law Cente
Constitution Day Coordinator: Mark Dzula, the Webb Schools (CA)
Additional Contributors:
Candace Bowen, MJE, Kent State University (OH), retired
John Bowen, MJE, Kent State University (OH), retired
Kirsten Gilliland, Bryan High School in Omaha, NE
Kristin Taylor, MJE, The Archer School for Girls (CA)
