Philadelphia Photo Story and Copyright Law

At last, my daughter's Photo Story about visiting The Brandywine Battlefield, Valley Forge and historic Philadelphia!



Song credit: Fennell, F. & The Eastern Wind Ensemble. "Yankee Doodle - Field Music of the US Army ". God Bless America--The Ultimate Patriotic Album. 2002. MP3

This Photo Story took a little longer because I had to learn how to a) download a song from iTunes, b) burn that song to a disc, and c) rip it from my disc to save to my computer. Why? Because even though I purchased the song, iTunes uses Digital Rights Management technology to impose limits on the use of digital content. This prevents the user from playing an iTune on a non-Apple player. It also prevents the user from copying the song directly to Windows Media Player. Fortunately, there is a way to do it. Then, its an easy matter to upload the music from the computer to Photo Story 3.

Copyright Law and Fair Use
Is all of this legal? Ethical? Well, the whole point of copyright protection is to protect the intellectual and creative property rights of an author, composer, artist, or creator. According to Dictionary.com, copyright is "the legal right granted to an author, a composer, a playwright, a publisher, or a distributor to exclusive publication, production, sale, or distribution of a literary, musical, dramatic, or artistic work". So, technically, even though I purchased this piece of music and provided attribution (a citation), I may be violating copyright law by distributing it on the Internet as a part of my daughter's Photo Story.

But what if I'm using the copyrighted material for education purposes? This is where things get a little tricky. Many educators believe that they can use copyrighted materials under the Fair Use doctrine as long as that use is restricted to instruction. This is not quite true. There are four factors one must consider when determining Fair Use:

1. the purpose or character of the use (i.e., is it for non-profit educational use?),
2. the nature of the copyrighted work (i.e., was it published, out of print, or factual?),
3. how much of the original work was used, and
4. the potential impact on the market for the original work.

In this case, the answers are:

1. the purpose of the use is educational (both for my daughter learning how to use the technology and in this blog which is written for educational purposes),
2. the nature of the work is a creative, published work; however, the song "Yankee Doodle" could be argued to be in the public domain,
3. The entire work was used (twice; typically, the 10% rule should be followed: only 10% or less of the cited work should be used), and
4. the potential impact on the market for the song is negligible.

Based on this analysis, the use of "Yankee Doodle" in this case would most likely be considered legal, but you never know.

Home schoolers using music or other creative works for the purpose of educating their own children probably do not need to worry about copyright law; however, Education World has a wonderful series of articles explaining copyright law and Fair Use.

Our trip to Philadelphia

Recently, we went on an extended field trip to Philadelphia. My husband had a conference to attend, and the kids and I tagged along to go sightseeing. It was the perfect opportunity to see Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, and the Betsy Ross house. We have not reached this period in history yet, but we had the opportunity and took advantage of it.

On the first day of our trip, we drove out to Kennett Square in the historic Brandywine Valley, about 45 outside of Philly. Kennett is the home of Longwood Gardens. Pierre duPont, of the duPont chemical company, purchased the land in 1906 from Quaker farmers to preserve an arboretum. He added classical gardens, water fountains, a conservatory, an outdoor theater meadows, and ponds to create the foremost horticultural showplace and educational center in the United States.

When I first told my children we would be visiting Longwood Gardens, they rolled their eyes and groaned, but boy, were they in for a surprise! With its tree houses, fountain show, indoor childrens' garden, model train garden, giant lily pads, banana trees, topiary garden, and carillon tower, Longwood Gardens won them over. We visited for over four hours, and left only because my children could walk no farther. Below is a photo story, created by my daughter, of our day in the gardens. Unfortunately, the batteries in her camera died, and she was unable to get pictures of the tree houses which were spectacular.




Photo Story 3 is a free microsoft product which you can download to your computer. Upload and alter your photos, add text, narration, and sound, and ta da!!! You have a video. Its very easy to use and a great way to record a field trip, the steps in a science project, or tell a story.

My daughter is currently working on a photo story of Valley Forge and Philadelphia. When it is complete, I will upload it so you all can see the wonderful places we visited in Philadephia.