At the Michigan Music Educators Conference last weekend in Grand Rapids, both users and creators of copyrighted works converged for three days of workshops, lectures and performances.

The Copyright Alliance attended to talk with educators about a brand new resource for teachers – An Educator’s Guide to Copyright – now available for free in the For Educators section of the Alliance web site. The materials provide an overview of copyright, its history, frequently asked questions, and copyright’s role in the classroom.

The Alliance was asked all sorts of questions in Michigan, where thousands of teachers, students and parents gathered. These are people who use and love music. They love performing it. They love listening to it. They have a deep appreciation for it.

They asked about public performance, use of sheet music in classrooms, even about student projects and how copyright applies in different cases.

On the flip side of these sometimes confusing copyright questions are the creators. And they were out in full force at the Michigan conference as well – young composers, writers and music publishers. (On a side note, even outside the walls of the conference, creativity was alive and well in Grand Rapids - from a local photographer’s exhibit featuring pictures of Grand Rapids’ six sister cities all over the world, to a beautiful gallery filled with paintings, sculpture and jewelry crafted by local artists.)

The people harmed by a misunderstanding or avoidance of copyright rules of the road are not confused. They understand fully what is at stake and what is lost.

One New Jersey-based author of music instruction books who was exhibiting at the conference trade show was particularly heated when discussing the cost of copyright infringement to his business. He has been writing and publishing music lesson books for more than 25 years and, as he picked up Volume 1 of a series of manuals, asked me, “Do you have any idea how many times this has been photo-copied? THOUSANDS!” He told me that a friend starting a new job at a school mailed him a box of 400 photocopies of his Volume 1 she had found in the music department.

The encouraging news for creators like him is that there is evidence that conversations are happening among educators. Teachers we spoke with mentioned discussions, questions raised and an eagerness to have additional resources.

In offering up the education resources on the Alliance web site, educators responded - “I can really use these materials;” “I have a colleague who will love this;” and “This will be great for my introduction to music class.”

Most people want to do the right thing. And most people, when they stop to consider the fact that a gentleman in New Jersey is trying to make a living off his multiple music volumes, can better connect the idea of copyright and its importance not only to today’s creators, but tomorrow’s creators who right now are learning and performing music everyday in their classrooms.

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 30th, 2009 at 1:57 pm by Gayle Osterberg and is filed under creators, education, events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.