Transformativeness – new word for me but it makes sense

For a long time now I’ve struggled with how to interpret the fair use provision when it comes to Copyright law. It’s a vexed issue for we educators, and particularly those of us who work in school libraries. I’ve been having my students create Digital Stories for awhile now and have tried to impress on them the best way of accessing music and images from the web is via sites that put their content out there under Creative Commons licencing. They find this difficult however, particularly when it comes to music. Very often they know just the right song that fits the message they are trying to convey. Here in Australia, there is a clause related to use of music and sound recordings in student work;

“There is no general provision that allows people to copy for personal or private use. However, the Copyright Act does contain provisions which students may sometimes be able to rely on, including when they want to use music and sound recordings in films and videos they make as part of a course of study. In particular, a student may be able to deal with copyright material for research or study, provided the use is fair. An example of fair dealing for research or study may be using music in a film which is to be submitted for a school or university project, but which you do not intend to show outside the classroom or distribute further.” (Australian Copyright Council p.3)

Tonight I was following the discussion on Twitter when Kristin Hokanson alerted me to her post about copyright confusion. This in turn led to Joyce Valenza’s post  for the School Library Journal entitled, ‘Fair use and transformativeness: It may shake your world’. After reading it, I can say my world has been shaken. Joyce attended a meeting at which Renee Hobbs and Peter Jazsi outlined an interpretation of fair use that she had not considered. Her understanding at the end of the session was this;

“I learned on Friday night that the critical test for fairness in terms of educational use of media is transformative use. When a user of copyrighted materials adds value to, or repurposes materials for a use different from that for which it was originally intended, it will likely be considered transformative use; it will also likely be considered fair use. Fair use embraces the modifying of existing media content, placing it in new context.” 

The word transformative is key here. The suggestion is (I think!) that if a student uses an image or piece of music and adds value to it by maker it richer as a result of its association with what they have produced then the use is fair. I can relate this to the digital stories my students have produced .Often they will use a commercial piece of music but its connection with the images and intention of the students’ work is transformative to that music selection – it means something else other than what its lyrics may have been originally intended for. I may have this completely wrong and please correct me if I have, but that is my understanding of what transformative means.

Joyce summed up her article by condensing her understanding to these points;

Joyce is speaking from an American perspective but I think there is much to be learned from her article. We are living in transformative times and our students are active creators now that there are accessible tools making creation relatively easy – if only copyright law could follow suit and provide us with clear (read easy to understand) guidelines that will benefit the learning taking place in our classrooms today.

(sorry about formatting problems in this post – it’s late here, I’m tired and haven’t got the energy to sort them out!!)