Publishing memes also means
knowing copyright rules QT14
Memes.
Entertainment. Political statements. A way to comment on issues, events, people.
And, if not done correctly, says Mark Goodman, Knight Chair in Scholastic Journalism, a way to violate the owner’s copyright. A violation several owners pursued.
If it’s not considered fair use, student media could be sued for copyright infringement or receive a letter demanding payment for use of the copyrighted work.
There is not much precedent about the use of memes and whether they are considered a fair use under copyright law.
That is the ultimate question.
If students comment on the meme itself, their use is probably going to be considered a fair use and it should be fine. Attribution is ethically appropriate but it’s not legally required.
On the other hand, if students use the meme because it illustrates something they want to say and they’re not engaged in some commentary about the original copyright work, it wouldn’t be a fair use, even if you attribute it. And in either case, attribution isn’t really a factor. Attributing a work to its source doesn’t avoid a copyright infringement claim.
Guideline and policy
Although most copyright owners might not complain about the use of their work in a meme, some have pursued payment from individuals who used their images without permission.
Being careful is wise.
Key points/action: There is not much precedent about the use of memes and whether they are considered a fair use under copyright law. That is the ultimate question.
If it’s not considered fair use, you could be sued for copyright infringement or receive a letter demanding payment for use of the copyrighted work.
Stance: If your students are commenting on the meme itself, their use is probably going to be considered a fair use and it should be fine. Attribution is ethically appropriate but it’s not legally required.
Reasoning/suggestions: On the other hand, if your students are using the meme because it illustrates something they want to say and they’re not engaged in some commentary about the original copyright work, it wouldn’t be a fair use, even if you attribute it. And in either case, attribution isn’t really a factor. Attributing a work to its source doesn’t avoid a copyright infringement claim.
Another potential copyright concern is with video dubs. Although a common event in some schools, video dubs need to be handled with legal and ethical care. It is essential, if the product is to go on the web, it is essential to follow all copyright requirements.
Guidelines for these may be found here.
Student media set a strong model for others to follow, so it is incumbent on them to follow copyright laws and ethical guidelines.
Resources: Mark Goodman, Knight Chair in Scholastic Journalism, Kent State University, September 2017.
How copyright is killing your favorite memes
Read my lips: Students should exercise caution when producing lip sync videos
Related: These points and other decisions about mission statement, forum status and editorial policy should be part of a Foundations Package that protects journalistically responsible student expression.
Read More
Takedown requests:
when the right to preserve history
conflicts with the desire to forget it QT13
Blog by Kristin Taylor
As more student newspapers move to digital platforms, editors and advisers are facing a new and insidious form of post-publication censorship: takedown requests.
The requests usually go something like this: “I was a student at [fill in name] high school [fill in number] years ago, and I was interviewed/wrote a story/was in a photo/made a comment that I regret now. I don’t want this showing up in Google searches. Please remove this story from your site.”
This hypothetical student may not know it, but her request is part of a much larger conversation about honoring individual privacy versus preserving the historical record. In 2014, Europe’s highest court ruled individuals have a “right to be forgotten” that may supersede the right to preserve and share information via search engines like Google. This court ruling is controversial and would probably not happen in the United States; the First Amendment has strong protections for free speech and press that would likely prevent this kind of revisionism, but that doesn’t stop individuals from wishing they could take back the past.
Lawyer Mike Godwin, creator of the tongue-in-cheek “Godwin’s law,” has “been thinking longer than just about anyone else about why people can sometimes behave awfully on the Internet,” according to the Washington Post. He is skeptical that we have more “right to be forgotten” online than we do in everyday life:
“There’s this fantasy that these people have that they have control over what they say or do online,” Godwin writes. “But if I say ‘I love you’ to someone, I can’t take it back. I have no control over what happens to it after that. Words have effect in the real world that you can’t take back. That’s language’s eerie power.”
[pullquote]“What you see underlying the ‘right to be forgotten’ is the idea that somehow there’s a sense of yourself out in the world that you can draw boundaries around,” Godwin continues. “That, I think, is fantasy. I sympathize with the fantasy. I think it’s a natural human impulse. But the fact is that we’re connected in ways that require us to think profoundly about how we present ourselves. And we’re never going to achieve the kind of control over that that one might want in an ideal world.”[/pullquote]
“What you see underlying the ‘right to be forgotten’ is the idea that somehow there’s a sense of yourself out in the world that you can draw boundaries around,” he continues. “That, I think, is fantasy. I sympathize with the fantasy. I think it’s a natural human impulse. But the fact is that we’re connected in ways that require us to think profoundly about how we present ourselves. And we’re never going to achieve the kind of control over that that one might want in an ideal world.”
On one level, I have sympathy for takedown requests. It’s true that we do a lot of growing in our high school years, and we do things we later regret. You only have to look at the growing number of articles and warnings about your “digital footprint” to realize this is a big issue in the Information Age. Unlike an op-ed published in a printed school paper, which is difficult to track down, an op-ed in an online paper is easily searchable. But so are a person’s social media posts and posts where others have tagged her. Our digital footprint isn’t going away, and part of being a successful 21st century citizen is learning to manage it.
I think we also need to help our students understand it’s all right to change our minds over time. Rather than insisting we have never held any other opinion or never made a mistake, we should embrace how our ideas and perspectives shift as we get older and have more experiences. Isn’t it healthier to acknowledge our past beliefs and mistakes rather than deny them? If a college admissions officer or future employer brings up an op-ed you wrote in high school, why not say, “Yes, I had a very different view back then than I do now. Let me tell you about how and why my viewpoint has changed since then.”
[pullquote]As sympathetic as I am to the impulse to “take it back,” I can’t support revisionist history. Part of the job of journalism is to provide a historical record — a true account of events and people from a point in time. Professional papers certainly won’t erase past articles, whether print or digital, and scholastic publications shouldn’t either except, perhaps, in extraordinary circumstances.[/pullquote]
As sympathetic as I am to the impulse to “take it back,” I can’t support revisionist history. Part of the job of journalism is to provide a historical record — a true account of events and people from a point in time. Professional papers certainly won’t erase past articles, whether print or digital, and scholastic publications shouldn’t either except, perhaps, in extraordinary circumstances.
So how should we deal with these requests when they arise? JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Committee outlines ethical guidelines, staff manual processes and a list of suggestions and resources, one of which is this list of three takedown models for your staff manual. Using these guidelines, I worked with my editors at The Archer School for Girls to craft a takedown policy for our manual that errs on the side of preserving the historical record unless the potential harm to the person making the request outweighs all other factors. This is one possible model staffs could use as they begin to develop their own policies.
Staff Manual Model: Takedown Requests
The Oracle is a digital news source, but it is still part of Archer’s historical record. The Oracle’s primary purpose is to publish the truth, as best we can determine it, and be an accurate record of events and issues from students’ perspectives. Writers and editors use the 11 “Put Up” steps before publication to ensure the validity, newsworthiness and ethics of each article. For these reasons, the editorial board will not take down or edit past articles except in extraordinary circumstances.
If someone requests a takedown, the board will consider the following questions and actions:
- Does the content contain libel, inaccurate information, unwarranted invasion of privacy, obscenity or copyright infringement? If so, the editor-in-chief will remove this unprotected speech and add a corrections statement at the end of the article, as per the “Regarding Errors” policy. If, after careful investigation and discussion, the editorial board determines that the article is too heavily saturated with this unprotected speech to maintain, the board may decide to take the article down entirely. The board must come to consensus to make this decision.
- Does the content harm the requester so significantly that it outweighs all other factors? The editorial board will investigate this claim and weigh it against the value of an unaltered historical record. The board must come to consensus before taking down an article for this reason.
- If the content does not meet either of these extraordinary circumstances, it will remain posted.
Regardless of the outcome, the Editor-in-Chief will respond in writing to the request explaining the board’s action(s) and rationale for the final decision.
Guideline: Journalists may be asked to remove online content for any number of reasons. Just because content is unpopular or controversial does not mean a media staff should comply with such requests. When journalists meet their goal of producing consistent, responsible journalism, they likely will choose to leave the content in question online even in the face of criticism.
All media – including student media – provide a historical record of issues, events and comments. As such, content should not be changed unless there are unusual circumstances.
Another alternative to takedown demands would be to create publishing standards we would call Put Up criteria. Train student editors and staffers in why and how something should be published so takedown requests are avoided.
Key point: Source’s remorse, writer’s second-thoughts or other rethinking of existing information accessible to employers, colleges or simply to friends sometimes causes uncomfortable questions for student staffs.
What guidelines should student media staffers adapt or create that fulfills the role of historical-record, forum and source of information?
Stance: We feel there are no quick and easy answers, but plenty of ethical room for discussion and implementation of workable guidelines (not policy) that can withstand the test of time.
Reasoning/suggestions
- In some cases, student editors may take down a story because they determine the content warrants a one-time exception (such as fabrication or to protect a source).
- Reporters may elect to do a follow-up story.
- If student editors choose to remove content, they should publish a note on the site explaining when and why the content was removed.
- Takedown criteria should be outlined and explained in the staff manual.
- Create guidelines and procedures to ensure students only post information and images they feel meet standards of responsible journalism: Put Up guidelines.
Resources: Takedown demands? A roadmap of choices Scholastic Press Rights Committee
Respond to Takedown Demands, Student Press Law Center
Setting Criteria Before the Requests Come, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee
10 Steps to a Put-Up Policy, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee
Audio: Takedown Requests, JEA Scholastic Press Rights Committee, Press Rights Minute
5 Ways News Organizations Respond to ‘Unpublishing’ Requests, The Poynter Institute
Related: These points and other decisions about mission statement, forum status and editorial policy should be part of a Foundations Package that protects journalistically responsible student expression.
Read MoreFree expression sample press release
Sample press release
Another option for letting your various communities know about the benefits of free expression legislation is to create a press release to media, civic groups, school board and others.
Rather than trying to create a cookie-cutter press release version, we thought we would create a model sample where points from our legislative package and its resources could be melded into local comments and philosophy. The outline below is only a shell to which you and students can add specific approaches and activities and principles.
Such a press release is designed to inform your communities about the legislation and its importance.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date
Contact:
Your Name
School
Phone
Email
Headline to fit your situation
Seize the day.
Make a Difference.
State legislation that promises student freedom of expression can help student journalists achieve that goal because of the educational, civic and journalistic responsibility it offers.
__________ (state name) just passed such a law and (add local information here. If in Illinois or Maryland, place a graph of two about the state legislation and effort and what it means. If attempting to pass legislation, focus on points how it will help education and civic engagement)
Information generated in student media where students practice what they have been taught, as protected by this legislation, will showcase the quality of the mission, policies and ethical guidelines of journalistically responsible students.
This legislation allows our journalism programs to train students who:
- Make all final decisions of content
- Practice civic and social responsibility
- Present complete, thorough and accurate stories in context
(Quote from adviser, state journalism or legislative officials, etc.)
As journalists and journalism educators, we will do everything we can to present stories that are accurate, complete and thorough. We will inform our news consumers in a way that is not only transparent, but also independent and without bias using multiple sources.
(Talk here about how you and your students will carry out your program using editorial policy, ethical guidelines and journalistic responsibility.)
We will engage our audiences not only in the practice of journalism, but in civic activities that make a difference. (Perhaps provide examples.)
(Another local quote…)
Journalists Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, authors of The Elements of Journalism and Blur, would put it this way: Journalism is storytelling with a purpose. That purpose is to provide people with information they need to understand the world. The first challenge is finding information that people need to live their lives. The second is to make it meaningful, relevant, and engaging.
In a time when information abounds, although not all credible, when political speeches are fact-checked regularly and multiple sources of information are necessary to make sense of news, legislation for free student expression will aid all involved.
Here are some ways how:
For more specific details and information of the importance of such legislation please go to XXXXXXX and XXXXXX
For more information…..
(signatures)
Read MoreTips for reaching out to communities
for info on student free expression
Steps students and advisers can use to help others understand the importance and need for student and free student expression
With new legislation, or attempts to pass it, comes the need for ways to engage those who would support it. The ways can run from concept to concrete and can be delivered in many approaches with details determined locally.
- Convert or update your editorial policy so it reflects your public forum status and explain why that status is important
- Know the law in your state and have policy and practice correspond to it
- Know your school board policies and know how to bring them into line with changes in state law
- Hold a forum for your community/administrators/students to share information. Student media leaders could also invite questions and provide guidance
- Establish a strong network of alumni, parents and community members to help spread the value of free student expression and to assist you with problems
- Prepare an op-ed piece for your community media about the importance of free student media
- Maintain an active and informed voice opposing censorship wherever it occurs
- Blog what your students will do, as protected by a state free expression law, to prevent fear of irresponsible journalism. This could include discussion of media mission, policy, decisions, ethical guidelines and staff manual process
- Endorse the use of adult blogs and social media to show now that students have freedom of expression they will uphold standards of journalistic responsibility.
- Don’t self-censor. Know what to publish that is meaningful content, and how and why to do so effectively
- Empower your students, through their decision-making, to practice socially responsible journalism and to know the difference between sound and unsound journalism so they can better teach their communities
- Invite the various groups into your newsroom to see students at work
- Explain what terms like forum, etc., mean and how they will work with students making decisions
- Develop Talking Points on the educational and civic values of free student expression
- Create a press release based on a model release in this package
- Stress social responsibility across platforms in journalism: truth, accuracy , content and completeness
- Use the Panic Button to reach JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Committee if you need additional assistance
- Remember three additional points:
–Your credibility as student media rests not on Hazelwood and review, but on journalistically responsible, ethical and complete reporting
–Journalism is at the core of democracy. If students learn that control trumps freedom because of decisions like Hazelwood and its practices, then democracy crumbles, bit by bit
–Communities cannot be informed, or act upon the information they have if it is limited, controlled or distorted by prior review or censorship
Read MoreTerms connected with
student free press legislation
Terms concerning free expression legislation
- Prior review is the practice of school administrators – or anyone in a position of authority outside the editorial staff – demanding that they be allowed to read (or preview) copy prior to publication and/or distribution.
Prior review itself is a form of prior restraint. It inevitably leads the reviewer to censor and student journalists to self-censor in an effort to assure approval. An officially designated adviser, when working with students and offering suggestions for improvement as part of the coaching and learning process, who reads or views student media content before publication is not engaged in prior review. However, when an adviser requires pre-distribution changes over the objections of student editors, his/her actions then become prior restraint.
This state legislation does not prevent prior review. However, every major journalism education organization have spoken against it, saying it has no educational value and is only the first step toward censorship.
- Prior restraint occurs when school officials – often after they have read material (prior review) – do something to inhibit, ban or restrain its publication.
Prior restraint prevents a complete and often factual story or set of facts from being told.
It often prevents an accurate account of the topic or issue from being told
- Forum for student expression
A public forum is created when school officials have “by policy or by practice” opened a publication for use by students to engage in their own free expression.
In the Hazelwood decision, the Court said it believed both the policy and practice at Hazelwood East High School reflected school officials’ intent to exercise complete control over the student newspaper’s content. That finding prompted the Court to say a designated public forum did not exist.
Nevertheless, student publications at other schools with different policies and different practices relating to editorial control can be public forums. Where student editors have been given final authority over content decisions in their publications or where a school policy explicitly describes a student publication as a designated public forum, the Tinker standard will still apply.
If you’re developing a new policy or altering current policy to reflect changes in state law, the Scholastic Press Rights Committee recommends using language that reads something like this:
[Name of publication] is a designated public forum for student expression. Student editors make all content decisions without prior review from school officials.
- Public forums by policy: An official school policy exists that designates student editors, within clearly defined limitations (no libel, obscenity, etc.), as the ultimate authority for determining content. (A publication’s own editorial policy does not count as an official school policy unless some school official has formally endorsed it.) School administrators practice this policy by exercising a hands-off role and empowering student editors to lead. Advisers teach and offer students advice, but they neither control nor make final decisions regarding content.
- Public forums by practice: A school policy may or may not exist regarding student media, but administrators take a hands-off approach and empower students to control content decisions. For some period of time, there has been no act of censorship by administrators and there is no required prior approval of content by administrators. Advisers teach and offer students advice, but they neither control nor make final decisions regarding content. (Principals Guide)
This link describes the types and is basis for summary to be added here: http://jeasprc.org/tweet2-choosing-your-forum-status-is-like-choosing-the-best-medicine/
Read this article by Mark Goodman on forum status: http://jeasprc.org/questions-about-public-forum-status/
Administrators like to talk of responsible or accountable student media. We agree, but want to couch the terms this way: journalistic responsibility.
Journalistic responsibility includes accuracy, context, completeness and verification. Your first responsibility, as student journalists, is to present truth as best you can find it to your various communities in such a way that empowers them to make effective decisions that enhance democracy.
Such a definition precludes prior review, prior restraint and other limitations that would distort or render student reporting inaccurate or inaccurate.
- Codes of ethics
Codes of ethics are recommended journalistic guidelines. As such they propose journalistic practices akin to professional standards. But, they are not requirements. No professional journalism organization forces its members or practitioners to adhere or to follow them.
JEA’s Adviser Code of Ethics establishes Best Practices for teaching and advising journalism and student media. NSPA’s Student Code of Ethics is but one model code for students. Another, used by many student media as a model is the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics.
JEA recommends establishing a board -level editorial policy, media mission statement, media-level policy, media codes of ethics for students with a strong staff manual on the processes students will use to practice ethical guidelines.
The policy statements should show student media as designated public forums for student expression where students make all final decisions of content without prior review. For detailed information on wording and process for these guidelines, go to the SPRC’s Foundations package.
Relevant court cases
- Tinker: The Tinker Standard (1969) protects student speech unless it is libelous, an invasion of privacy or creates a “clear and present danger” or a “material and substantial disruption” of the school.
- Hazelwood: The Hazelwood decision (1988) allowed administrators to easily justify censorship of legitimate speech in curricular settings. The following states have this protection. Click on each state to see their law.
Common legal definitions (as defined by the SPLC):
- Libel: Any published communication – words, photos, pictures, symbols – that falsely harms a person’s reputation. Libel is written; slander is spoken defamation. A five of these elements must be present for there to be libel: publication, identification, harm, falsity and fault. Provable truth is an absolute defense against libel.
- Invasion of privacy: The right to privacy is not explicitly guaranteed by the Constitution, and not all elements recognized by all states. The four types of invasion of privacy are: Public disclosure of private and embarrassing facts; Intrusion; False light and Misappropriation
- Obscene as to minors: True obscenity is not protected speech; identifying it easier said than done. Profanity and nudity are not in themselves obscene. To be determined as obscene, something must meet all three tests: material has no serious literary, political, artistic or scientific content; predominantly appeals to the prurient, shameful or morbid interest of mines and patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable for minors and is utterly without social importance for minors
- Material and substantial disruption: The Tinker standard. Claims of material and substantial disruption must have factual support, which can include “reasonable forecast” of disruption “Undifferentiated fear or apprehension of disturbance” or a “mere desire” to avoid unpopular views does not qualify. Sometimes referred to as “clear and present danger” in legislation.
Specific legislation language (Illinois)
- School official: A school principal or his or her designee
- School sponsored media: Any material prepared, substantially written, published or broadcast by student journalists and available to others outside the classroom
- Student journalist: Any public high school journalist who gathers, compiles, writes, edits, photographs, records or prepares information for dissemination in school-sponsored media
• Student media adviser: An individual employed, appointed or designated by a school district to supervise or provide instruction relating to school-sponsored media.
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