Copyrights are very confusing for both teachers and the students they are required to teach them to. Thankfully, the Internet is full of resources for students and teachers, so that we can understand and relay the important information on to others. Templetons.com clears up ten of the top copyright myths.
For example, creating your own story off of another doesn’t give you the copyrights, because the characters, specific themes, relationships, etc already belong to someone else.
It is important that we educate out next generation of copyright laws because it can get them into serious trouble. Plagiarism can get them expelled from school, and infringing on copy rights, depending on the material, can earn them as high as a felony.
I personally understand the importance of copyright laws because I am a writer. As a writer, I work very hard on developing characters, plots, and new, exciting themes for my stories. It feels like a personal insult when someone just copy and pastes your hard work and doesn’t even give you credit, even if unintentional. Stories are rarely infringed on compared to artwork. I am friends with many artists who have lots of trouble dealing with art theirs. Informing everyone of the creators rights is important because it could give them the knowledge ahead of time that what they’re doing is wrong and the possible consequences of their actions if they decide to go through with it anyway (http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html).
