Who Owns It?
Exploring The Concept of Intellectual
Property and Copyright
Owning Property
Key Ideas
People can own property, eg. a house,
a car. This is called 'real' or tangible property.
Group/Individual Activities
Groups use dictionary and thesaurus
to come up with definition and synonyms for property. Report back.
©Brainstorm.
In groups prepare a list of property
that students would like to own when they grow up.
Groups then divide list into two columns that they consider essential/non essential.
Present lists back to class along with justifications.
©Debate.
Choose several items and have groups/individuals
debate the 'essentialness' of certain items. In light of debate, re-evaluate lists.
©Written Expression.
How would you feel if your property
was lost or stolen? Write a paragraph and share.
©Role Play.
Someone's property has been stolen
at school. A person who has stolen something before is wrongly blamed. You know that
the culprit is a friend of yours. What do you do? Groups role play and discuss.
Owning an Idea
Key Idea

Ideas such as inventions, books, designs and logos, articles, plant varieties, music
are also property. This is called intellectual property.
Copyright
©Dictionary
Have pupils find and explain definition
of the word 'copyright' (exclusive right to publish, sell and reproduce a literary,
dramatic, artistic or musical work).
Develop the idea that these ideas
or inspirations that people have are also treated as property, called 'intellectual'
property and are protected automatically by copyright law.
©Create a Display
Have pupils collect and display any
written work, art work, musical work, photographs, videos, or plays that they have
recently completed. Place a small label by the display to indicate the copyright
holder of each item.
A Scenario for Development
Have pupils imagine they are either
artists, musicians, publishers, film makers or photographers. Have them discuss how
they would make their living.
They see one of their creations/ideas,
songs being offered for sale in a newspaper or TV advertisement. How do they feel?
©Discuss, Write
Is this the same as stealing real
property? If people were able to continually sell ideas invented by others, how would
people feel about coming up with new ideas. Discuss.
What could they do about it? Invite
a lawyer to talk to the class. Are there any penalties for violating copyright/ Some
pupils may be aware of the warning at the start of every video they hire.
©Copyright Search
Look for the word copyright and the © symbol on books, video tapes, CDs, tapes, computer software etc.
We've All Done It
Awareness Activities
©General Discussion
We have probably all violated copyright
unintentionally at some stage. Common violations are photocopying material from books,copying
videos, copying cassette audio tapes/CDs , music, computer games and software programmes.
Talk about it.
Survey your class and school to find
out the most common violations of copyright. Graph and display.
©A Copyright Display
Have pupils prepare a display of books,
videos, software, CDs etc for the school foyer, drawing attention to where the copyright
symbol is usually displayed.
©Slogans and Posters
Have pupils plan and mount a home
and school campaign to raise awareness of the importance of respecting copyright.
Have them design posters and slogans. Run a competition.

©Invite a librarian to
the classroom to talk about copyright requirements for books. Find out what, how
much and when you can legally copy.
Focus on Computer Software
©Invite a computer expert
to speak to the class about the dangers of sharing software, public domain software,
different types of software licences and the latest software.
Talk about the consequences for the
software industry of abuse of copyright. Are there ways where we - the users - will
suffer?
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