Intellectual Property no Jutsu: Copywrongs, Fair Use, and Naruto v. Slater

Move to slide 9 and ask students if they’ve ever heard the phrase “information wants to be free.” Encourage students to raise their hands or offer up other responses.

Show slide 10 and have students read the full quote with the phrase in context: “On the one hand, information wants to be expensive because it’s so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other.”

Draw students’ attention to the prompt on the right side of the slide. Have them consider the question, “Thinking about the quote and what you have learned so far, what do you think “information wants to be free” means in its full context?”

Use the Think-Pair-Share instructional strategy to have students reflect on the quote. Have them individually write a response to the prompt on paper. Have each student then find a partner and have pairs discuss their responses. Allow students time to discuss, then invite students to share out what they discussed in their pairs.

Display slide 11 and reference the slide to clarify what the originator the quote, Stewart Brand, was discussing at the time.

Display slide 12 and share the DMCA image. Ask students if they have ever seen this image or one like it. Supply the term “DMCA takedown” if students do not mention it. Tell students that DMCA stands for “Digital Millennium Copyright Act.”

Help students understand that this message, which is one they’ve likely encountered before in different forms, is an example of legal protection and an attempt to restrict content that was used without permission. Tell students that this can happen when a person or corporation finds copyrighted media they own, like a song, movie, or other intellectual property, uploaded to a website like YouTube. The person or corporation affected then files a DMCA takedown and the website removes the content.

Move to slide 13 and provide the QR code or link to your Mentimeter word cloud with students. Ask students to respond to the prompt on the slide: “What counts as intellectual property?”

Give students time to respond. Display slide 14 and explain to students that intellectual property is any creation—inventions, written works, art, music, etc.—that began as an idea; you can’t copyright a feeling, but you can protect a tangible version like a song, design, or article. Review the examples of intellectual property on the slide.

Have students form groups of 3–4 to discuss which words in the word cloud might or might not be intellectual property. Once students have discussed in their groups, ask them to share out their thoughts.

Move to slide 15. Remind students that the personal logo they created earlier is considered intellectual property. Ask students what else they may have created recently that could be considered intellectually property. Then, ask them if they’ve ever used or transformed something created by someone else, like a drawing or a photograph.

Have students discuss their responses to the questions on the slide within their small groups. Invite students to share their thoughts with the whole class.

Display slide 16 and begin to define copyright with students. Review the following eight categories of copyrightable work on the slide:

1. Literary

2. Musical

3. Dramatic

4. Choreographic

5. Visual art 

6. Film

7. Architecture

8. Sound

Point out which categories encompass the work your club or class most often does. Consider providing examples of such works to help students understand how the concepts you’ve been working with can apply to them as club members.

Display slide 17 and tell students that copyright protects all original works equally, regardless of quality or purpose. Reiterate that, but this principle, students legally own all of the work they create in your club and for school.

Move to slide 18 and ask students to take out a piece of paper. Introduce the Sketchnotes instructional strategy. Invite students to take notes on the upcoming video in writing while visually enhancing ideas with lines, shapes, dots, arrows, colors, diagrams, etc. Encourage students to focus on the key points and main ideas.

Move to slide 19. Play the video on the slide, Copyright, Exceptions, and Fair Use: Crash Course Intellectual Property #3.

Once students have watched the video, encourage them to review their notes and add final thoughts or embellish their existing sketches.

Display slide 20. Invite students to respond at the bottom of their notes to the question on the slide: “What piece of knowledge do you think is or will be most useful to you?”