A Lesson in Copyright

A few days ago pictures started to appear in my moderation que on my 7th grade class Ning. Two of my students had found a site that had pictures they liked from the Manga series Vampire Knight. Not wanting to break copyright law I deleted the pictures and talked to my classes about copyright, creative commons, and how to ask for permission to use copyrighted images.

One of the students that had posted the pictures wanted to ask for permission to post the pictures so I had her bring in a copy of her book to get the publisher's information. The book was published by Viz Media LLC.

I went to their website and found an online form to fill out.

I had Hou type on the form and ask for permission to post the pictures.

I like the Vampire Knight to put on my blog.....but my teacher wants me to ask permission if i could put it on my blog.
-Houa


Then I added:

My student was posting pictures found on websites from the Vampire Knight series. I would not allow them to be posted because we don't have the right to publish these pictures. We decided to contact you and ask for permission.

The site she would like to post the pictures on is at: http://noelclassof2011.ning.com/

Thank you for your attention to this matter,

-Wm Chamberlain
Noel Elementary School
Noel, Missouri

It isn't enough to discuss copyright with our students, we need to help them find solutions to copyright issues. While I don't know if we will be given permission to post these pictures I do know that Houa has learned how to ask instead of just take. The process is more important than the outcome.