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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