Copyright… what is copyright?

What's our role as educators in copyright usage in schools?

The more I read about this topic the less I understand. Most of the articles seem to be about copyright in USA. However, I am a Canadian and I teach internationally, with no intentions of teaching in America. I’m not saying this doesn’t concern me, but is there something more applicable to my situation or a global copyright law? I live in Thailand where copyrights, patents, and trademarks are broken everywhere. Nevertheless, as an educator I want to role model the right behavior. As Cindy B put it in her blog, Our role in the Use of Fair Use, "We ourselves, as educators, need to be good models and follow the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education. Instead of "Do as I say, not as I do", it should be "Do as I do!" My problem is I don't understand what it is I should and shouldn't do.


It would seem to me like the original reason for copyright was to protect creativity and increase progress of ideas. However, it seems to have lost its way and now it actually can hinder creativity and stop progress of ideas. I assume this is where Creative Commons comes in, but I don't quite understand that either. So rather than pretend I know what I am talking about here, let's try this:

Blogs are all about reflecting and hearing other opinions and perspectives, so let’s put this blog to good use and draw knowledge from the global world. Is there anyone out there that can help me get a clearer idea of what copyright actually is? What it is used for? And most importantly, what's our role as educators in copyright usage in schools?

Don’t be shy, let me see the power of blogging.

UPDATE: While adding the pictures on to this site I decided to link them because I thought that was the right thing to do to reference the pictures. However, the copyright photo linked no problem, yet the Creative Commons photo said I could not add it. However, as you can all see it is there. Is this picture now there illegally? How would I get it legally?